By John Helmer in Moscow

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with several government ministers, met on Monday [May 31] with representatives of Russian steel mills, carmakers, and state companies to discuss steel-pricing mechanisms. Putin started off wagging the stick, but it isn’t obvious that anyone in the audience thought he was serious.
Putin began the session by attacking the 25% to 30% price hikes which the domestic steelmakers have been seeking from consumers, starting on June 1. Resistance to these new prices led first to the halt of steel deliveries to car production lines ten days ago; and then to public lobbying by the steel consumers advocating a Kremlin-ordered price rise cap of 17%, an export tax on steel sold abroad, and other sanctions to pull the steelmakers into line.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

This sequence of picture-frames was taken by cameramen of RenTV, a Moscow television channel, of a vote on first-reading legislation by the State Duma, the initiating chamber for federal laws in Russia, on May 19.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, May 31st, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Alrosa chief executive Fyodor Andreyev has attempted to persuade the Sakha region to lift its veto on restructuring the shareholding of the company, and then selling shares in a public privatization or initial public offering (IPO).
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 27th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

As Russian villagers used to say in olden times, when the tsar is kind, the wait to see him is long; when he is cruel, there is no delay at all.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s explicit attack on steel prices at the start of this week, and the commencement of a new antitrust investigation of price-rigging against the Evraz group, have opened the floodgates to a spate of complaints — by the state-owned car manufacturers against the flat-sheet mills, and by the oil companies against the pipemakers.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday launched an orchestrated attack on steel prices and the profit margins of Russia’s steelmaking groups during a meeting with the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), Igor Artemyev.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco, ticker FESH)), the Russian dry-cargo fleet operator, plans to make a public issue of new shares to pay down debt. A total of 659.6 million new shares will be issued, the Fesco spokesman Stanislav Vartanyan told Fairplay; this bloc of shares makes about 23% of the company’s present charter capital. Vartanyan denies the move signals that recently disclosed plans to sell a substantial stake in the company to a non-Russian strategic investor have not materialized. But a Fesco report to investors a month ago did not mention the public share sale as an option.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, May 24th, 2010
No Comments »

Link to the PDF file in Russian
Alternative link

Case number 3/10-74/10

Copy

RULING
Moscow, May 18, 2010
Savyolovsky district court of Moscow chaired by the presiding judge Tsyplakova E.N.,
with participation of assistant of Savyolovsky inter-district prosecutor of Moscow Kuplensky A.I.,
representative of citizen Helmer J. – Kuznetsov O.B.,
with secretary Antonova E.N.,
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 20th, 2010
No Comments »

by John Helmer - Friday, May 14th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

For the first time in his career, Oleg Deripaska has faced questioning on his business practices and cashflows by a western judge in a criminal court proceeding. Spanish judge of the Audiencia Nacional, Fernando Andreu Merelles, and special prosecutor for corruption cases, José Grinda, were in Moscow on May 12 to interrogate Deripaska, according to their spokesman in Madrid. The spokesman added that their purpose was to “take statements from Deripaska for an offense of conspiracy and money laundering, as well.”
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 13th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s energy chief, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, has disclosed that the Black Sea oil export plan he launched in Milan last October, with much applause from Turkish and Italian interests, is going nowhere fast – err, I mean, slow.

He was speaking on the sidelines of President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Turkey on Wednesday. Without allowing direct questions from, or quotation by Russian reporters, Sechin reportedly said that a start on the new crude oil delivery route, including the cross-Turkey pipeline from Samsun, on the Black Sea, to Ceyhan, on the Aegean, will be delayed until 2015. In the oil business, five years into the future is a number equivalent to eternity — and for practical purposes, oblivion.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 13th, 2010
No Comments »