By John Helmer in Moscow

Hong Kong Exchange executives and the Hong Kong stock market regulator appear to be cracking and splitting under the strain of a phantom share listing and sale for United Company Rusal, Russia’s aluminium monopoly and one of the world’s leading producers of bauxite, alumina and primary aluminium. Although anonymous sources insist in press leaks that Rusal’s listing application has been approved, the exchange and the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong refuse to say this, or issue any of the notices, announcements, and public disclosures that are standard in such cases.
(more…)

by Editor - Monday, December 21st, 2009
No Comments »

(more…)

by John Helmer - Sunday, December 20th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s state stockpile agency Gokhran has this week released details of next year’s state funding for rough diamond purchases from Alrosa, revealing for the first time the average price per carat that will be paid.

According to a direct Gokran source and to an Interfax briefing by another Gokhran official, Gokhran says the 2010 budget allocates the rouble equivalent of $1 billion for purchase of about 14 million carats. This is an unprecedented public disclosure of the dollar and carat totals, allowing the first-ever calculation that Gokhran is paying, or plans to pay Alrosa, an average of just over $71 per carat.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, December 18th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

A powerful 6-point storm on Monday did an estimated $60 million worth of damage, and severely set back the construction schedule for the new Sochi cargo port, being built for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games at Imeretinsky Bay. The new port is being built by the holding company of bankrupt Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, and funded from the federal budget.

Liebherr-Werk Nenzing has the contract to supply mobile harbour cranes and other cargo handling equipment.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, December 17th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Russian business is child’s play, and very forgiving too, if you are big enough to pay for your mistakes. That’s why Alexei Mordashov is smiling in the picture, taken in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s office on December 4.

Mordashov is the owner of the second most heavily indebted steelmaking group in Russia, after Roman Abramovich’s Evraz group. Both have made multi-billion dollar blunders buying loss-making US steelmills at premium prices, just before last year’s bust reduced the value of the assets, but left enormous loans to be serviced. Both have laid off thousands of Russian steelworkers to “optimise” – Noddy’s word – on the costs of producing steel in Russia, so that the Russian mills will make profitable heaps of money, that can be spent subsidizing the blunders across the Atlantic. Mr Plod knows what’s going on – that’s his job. You might think he cares, too.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, December 17th, 2009
No Comments »

(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s state-owned oil pipeline company Transneft has upped the pressure on the controlling shareholders of Novorossiysk Commercial Seaport Company (NCSC) in what one Moscow maritime analyst calls today “an arm-twisting preliminary to next year’s contest over the sale of the 20% state stake in the port.”

While in London the UK High Court enters the third month of the Sovcomflot trial, exposing how Russian maritime officials lie, threaten, plot, and bribe over tanker fleet concessions, the fight over shareholding control of Russia’s second largest oil port illustrates the lack of inhibition with which similar tactics continue to be used for oil concessions onshore, one stage before the oil is loaded for export. Supervising all oil concessions, and with a special interest in the maritime end of the sales chain, according to the London trial testimony, is Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (3rd from left).
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

To all junior miners, resource project developers, and investors in the risky wilds of Kazakhstan, be of good cheer — a Supreme Court judgement issued on December 11 in Sydney, Australia, has awarded the equivalent of US$11.4 million in compensation, penalties, and costs against a group of lawyers who have been found guilty of engaging in dishonest business practices.

Justice Clifford Einstein had ruled in October that the Kazakhstan-based law firm of Michael Wilson & Partners had been defrauded by three lawyers who had been employed by Wilson; and who had secretly moonlighted to earn fees and share bonuses for stock market listings and other transactions involving several major Kazakh resource projects — Sunkar Resources’s Chilisai phosphate project; Frontier Mining’s Benkala copper project; Roxi Petroleum; Max Petroleum; two other Central Asian mining projects, Urals Gold and Ablai; and four projects tied to these and other operators in the same region — Karamandybas (oil and gas), Ravninnoye (oil), Beibars Munai (oil), Lancaster, and Kangamiut (seafoods).
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, December 14th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) has re-emerged from a bankruptcy proceeding initiated earlier this year by De Beers, to launch new charges in the Colorado state court against Russian oil company LUKoil, and well-known Russian oligarchs, Vagit Alekperov (lead bearer) and Alisher Usmanov (2nd bearer).

ADC is now being directed by a group of minority stakeholders, led by US attorney Bruce Marks; former board director, Clive Hartz; and the Firebird Global Master Fund of New York, with a stake of about 18%. De Beers owns 56% of ADC’s shares.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, December 14th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), the listed Russian dry-cargo fleet operator controlled by Sergei Generalov (left image), says it has run into a debt refinancing problem with the Russian state bank, Vneshtorgbank (VTB).

A Moscow report by Kommersant newspaper, quoting from a November 5 letter Generalov sent to the Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Oleg Saveleyev, and a report this week from the Moscow brokerage Finam, indicate that, in order to receive state repayment guarantees of up to Rb2.5 billion ($83 million), Generalov must transfer asset value and shares required by the bank. However, Generalov says he can’t right now; or doesn’t want to.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, December 11th, 2009
No Comments »