By John Helmer, Moscow The primaries for the Russian presidential campaign have already begun, and there are three contenders – Igor Sechin, Dmitry Kozak, and Dmitry Medvedev. Vladimir Putin isn’t a contender – he is the convention with all the votes; he makes the choice.

by John Helmer - Monday, April 11th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow LUKoil, Russia’s second oil producer and exporter, has been running an illegal cash smuggling scheme out of front companies in the US, and diverting millions of dollars into a slush fund through an Israeli front company, according to court papers filed in the US yesterday. The mastermind, the US documents allege, […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow A crack, though not yet a spill, has appeared in the Russian government’s plan to link state-owned oil producer Rosneft with BP in a multi-billion dollar joint venture for oil search in the Kara Sea.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow It is the most famous argument in favour of suspending disbelief in the history of the United States. Every year the trillion-dollar retail sector of that country turns several billions of dollars in profits by merchandising the belief through the cash register. That is, the belief in Santa Claus, first raised […]

by John Helmer - Monday, February 14th, 2011
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Click to see the map By John Helmer, Moscow At the gentlemen’s club bar, within stone’s throw of BP headquarters in St. James’s, the world famous investor confessed to having a tighter grasp on his gin and tonic than on the benefits he can count from BP’s deal with Rosneft, at least for shareholders of […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow If you stroll past BP’s London headquarters at night, and glance up, to the right of the top storey you will see an office window illuminated in bright blue. This may be the playroom of the former BP chief executive Lord Browne, whose departure from the company was accelerated by the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, January 27th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Gazprom, Russia’s largest company and the world’s leading exporter of natural gas, says it will delay all investment spending in Nigeria at least until next year’s Nigerian presidential election result is decided, and new legislation enacted to secure foreign investment in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. The statement of Gazprom’s nervousness […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow In the business of bloodsucking, noone does it better than Glencore of Baar, Switzerland. They call it trading. The way it works is that Glencore sinks its teeth into anyone unknowing, foolish, impoverished or desperate enough to come within range. Glencore then trades on 18% or higher profit margins for […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s ports used to be run by gangsters, because it was one of the easier assets in post-Communist Russia to control by simple violence. The history of the International Longshoremen in the US and Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters make this feature of port life unexceptional the world over.

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 16th, 2010
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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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