By John Helmer, Moscow

Russia’s government-owned fleet operator Sovcomflot, run by Sergei Frank, has announced that international commodity trader Glencore will take over, market and operate five of its newest oil tankers as they come out of the shipyard and put to sea.

The history of Glencore in Russia since 1991 is a simple one – only financially desperate enterprises agree to Glencore’s terms, when there is no cash to trade with, and no alternative for marketing. For example, in 2008 and 2009 Glencore had baled out Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal when it was on the brink of insolvency at negative $17 billion. When Russneft’s time came in 2010, the Kremlin preferred to make its deal to save the company with the original owner, Mikhail Gutseriyev, rather than leave Russneft in Glencore’s and Deripaska’s hands. More recently, after the lifting of the grain export embargo last July, the state-owned United Grain Company has intimated that it plans to attack Glencore’s dominant market share of the Russian grain export market.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, February 19th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

LUKoil, the second largest of Russia’s oil producers and exporters, is thinking of disposing of its northwestern Russian diamond mine known as Grib, selling the subsidiary Arkhangelskgeoldobycha (AGD) which has held the controversial mining licence through fifteen years of litigation and arbitration with Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC), a De Beers-owned company until its bankruptcy in 2010.

This isn’t the first time LUKoil has advertised such a sale. Because of the unresolved litigation and the mountain of evidence it has produced, the asset may be unsellable, at least to a foreign buyer. But if timing and tattle are telling against the sale, then is LUKoil doing no more than asking the state, through Alrosa, to take the diamond-mine off its hands at a conveniently high price?
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by John Helmer - Thursday, February 16th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The committee of administrators of the Personal Abasement Award (PAW), having sat on their hands for two years, have decided to nominate Catherine Belton (image left) and the Financial Times for a presentation of the affairs of Suleiman Kerimov (right) at the very moment he has been trying (failing) to cash out his stake in Polyus Gold with a merger into Polymetal.

The PAW award rules and procedures, along with the roll of past winners, can be found here. At this stage of the nominating process, the rules require that “each candidate will be advised of his nomination before publication, and given the opportunity to clarify meaning, and plead truth or justification.”
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Depending on whose opinion you trust, there’s not a great deal of difference between the business of Rod Christie-Miller (image) and the business of Anton Malevsky. It’s the business of conveying fear to motivate action – or inaction. A parachute jump put an end to Malevsky’s line of work. The UK High Court decision on February 10 in the case of Nathaniel Rothschild and Associated Newspapers Limited may have put an end to at least one of Christie-Miller’s lines, the threat business; at least, the threat Schillings regularly issues to sue reporters and publishers investigating Russian oligarchs and their business relationships with western bankers.
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by John Helmer - Monday, February 13th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

In the London marketplace, there are less circumspect descriptions of the way Nathaniel Rothschild (image top) behaves in the presence of Oleg Deripaska (image front right). Last week, the UK High Court Justice Sir Michael Tugendhat decided the term which applies is that Rothschild ingratiates himself with Deripaska for financial gain.

The judge also ruled that in launching a defamation case against the Daily Mail newspaper and its proprietor, Associated Newspapers Ltd., Rothschild changed his evidence, either confusing or contradicting himself, and claiming memory failure on key points. That amounts to a ruling that Rothschild has been either a fool or a liar in his attempt to punish public reporting of what he has been up to with Deripaska. “I do not accept,” wrote Justice Tugendhat, “that there is a clear line between the business and the personal sides of Mr Rothschild’s relationship with Mr Deripaska. They have very extensive business relationships.”
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by John Helmer - Monday, February 13th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The UK High Court action by the Schillings law firm, acting for Nathaniel Rothschild in a libel claim against the Daily Mail and Associated Newspapers, was dismissed today by Justice Sir Michael Tugendhat. The ruling also undermines libel threats by Schillings acting for Deripaska against newspapers in South Africa, Hong Kong, London, and the US, setting a new standard for reporting on the business affairs of Russian oligarchs, their bankers, and public officials whom they attempt to influence.
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by John Helmer - Friday, February 10th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Ten months ago in Russia, the venerable Chinese idea of penitence silver was proposed as a method of making the most powerful wrongdoers of the land pay for their sins — at least their original ones. It was recommended as an alternative to that Bolshevik cue, Expropriate the Expropriators!; the Khodorkovsky remedy, or the Chinese invitation to commit suicide (allowing the heirs to retain the dead man’s estate).

The original idea was Emperor Qianlong’s, whose 59-year rule came to a close in 1795, when he decided to step down from the throne. His plan was to prepare a retirement home in a corner of Beijing’s Forbidden City, and stock it with treasures to keep his mind occupied instead of power politics.
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by John Helmer - Friday, February 10th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

There is no family relationship between the fish and the bacteria; the latter are named after their discoverer, Daniel Elmer Salmon (1850-1914). But how much of a relationship there may be at the moment between salmonella in Norwegian salmon and Russian fish-eating security depends on another creature, the land-based red herring.

On the surface, according to Rosselkhoznadzor (RSKN), the federal service for veterinary and phytosanitary inspection, the half-billion dollar per year fish trade from Norway may be banned because of recent discoveries of salmonella and coliform infections in batches of imported salmon and other fish products. The threat was delivered in a letter, released on February 6, from RSKN to the Norwegian counterpart agency, referring to Russian laboratory evidence of the dangerous substances in the Norwegian imports.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, February 9th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (image centre), the overseer of Russia’s ports and shipping, as well as of the trade which passes through them, has recommended that the state shareholdings in Novorossiysk Commercial Seaport Company (NMTP is the Russian ticker, NCSP the English) be sold to Rosneft, the state oil company. This is according to a January 31 letter from Sechin to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which leaked to Moscow media yesterday. Government sources are neither confirming nor denying the letter; the government decision has yet to be made.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Mechel, the steelmaker and coalminer owned by Igor Zyuzin, is the dominant producer in Russia of the type of alloyed steel known in the English-speaking world as stainless. In French, it is known as inox (inoxydable).

Neither term is quite accurate, but what is meant is everywhere clear. Because the steel includes chrome alloy, it is more resistant to corrosion and discolouration (effects of oxidation). Adding nickel and manganese alloys also helps this resistance and preserves the sheen of the steel.
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by John Helmer - Monday, February 6th, 2012
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