By John Helmer in Moscow An announcement last week by LUKoil’s number-2 executive and shareholder, Leonid Fedun (see image), that the Russian oil producer expects to find more crude oil in Africa than in Russia was intended to set off alarms bells at the Ministry of Finance in Moscow. That is where Fedun is negotiating […]

by John Helmer - Friday, September 10th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow In the last three months of 2009, according to the federal Ministry of Finance in Moscow, Russia exported about 250,000 carats of rough diamonds, produced by Alrosa, to the west African republic of Guinea. There is no known diamond cutting or polishing facility in Guinea, and Russia has never exported […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 30th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow China’s metals giant, the Aluminum Corp of China Ltd. (Chalco aka Chinalco), tied another knot for its future mining plans in the Republic of Guinea with London-based Rio Tinto in a signing ceremony in Beijing today. But Guinea’s Mining Minister Mahmoud Thiam told Business Day this will not deter the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 29th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow A $200 million road construction project in Kenya, one of the country’s biggest infrastructure investments, is being delayed by a World Bank investigation of the involvement of Oleg Deripaska. The due diligence investigation of Deripaska now under way at the World Bank is the first acknowledgement by the multilateral global […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
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Moscow, 15 June 2010 – UC RUSAL (SEHK: 486, EuroNext: RUSAL/RUAL), the world’s largest aluminium producer, announces the visit of a UC RUSAL delegation headed by Oleg Deripaska, CEO of UC RUSAL, to Guinea. Within the framework of the visit the company and the government of the country reached several agreements.

by Editor - Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow On Thursday evening in Conakry, the capital of the west African republic of Guinea, presidential advisor Mamadou Conde was dismissed, after he was found to have been involved in a plan to sign over bauxite concession rights to the Russian aluminium monopoly Rusal, and arrange for acting Guinean President Sekouba […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 11th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow A bold move by two of Russia’s largest companies to fly General Sékouba Konaté, the acting head of the Guinean state in Conakry, to a rendezvous at the Kremlin with President Dmitri Medvedev has failed after a blaze of publicity caused the general to get cold feet.

by Editor - Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow and Conakry Alexey Vasiliev, a Russian professor specializing in the history of Saudi Arabia, flew to the west African republic of Guinea last week in a bid to lobby the Guinean Prime Minister, Jean-Marie Dore, on behalf of United Company Rusal, the bauxite and alumina producer in Guinea. Rusal is […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried sweet-talking the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Jabr al-Thani, in Moscow this week on “closer coordination” between the world’s leading exporters of natural and liquefied gas (LNG). At stake are the growing deliveries of shipborne Qatari LNG to European ports, versus the shrinking deliveries […]

by John Helmer - Friday, March 26th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Mahmoud Thiam, the US investment banker who has served for the past year as Guinea’s Minister of Mining, Energy and Hydraulics, has been reappointed to his post, according to an official government announcement from Conakry, the Guinean capital, late last night.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
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