By John Helmer in Moscow

In the very small world of Russian steelmaking genius, Dmitry Pumpyansky (see right figure) has always been thought a bright bird at managing his pipemills, rather than for picking the right ones to buy, or the right price to pay. As the history books show, the acquisition of the Russian mills comprising the TMK alliance was due in the first place to tough measures by tough men from the Urals, with an altogether different skill set.

Pumpyansky’s big flight test was last year and now, as the full cost of his acquisition of pipemills in the US and Canada has become grimly clear. Just how grim is spelled out by Ernst & Young in unprecedented warnings attached to the TMK financial reports, which were released on Friday. As they read the results, the stock markets chopped 3% off TMK’s share price.
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by John Helmer - Monday, October 19th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The key witness in the $800 million Sovcomflot (SCF) case against former CEO, Dmitry Skarga, and charterer Yury Nikitin, has contradicted a core claim by the company in his High Court testimony this week.

Igor Borisenko, SCF’s former chief financial officer, told the court he supported chartering of oil tankers to the shipping arm of the Kirishi refinery group, a company known as PNP, run by Yury Nikitin, before Skarga took over Sovcomflot in 2000, and afterwards as well. Borisenko was cross-examined about the written submission by Sovcomflot’s solicitor, Stuart Shepherd, that “Sovcomflot would not have done business with Mr Nikitin’s companies at all, had it not been for the bribes or other benefits provided by Mr Nikitin to Mr Skarga.” Borisenko told the court: “I think that Sovcomflot could charter vessels to PNP without bribes being paid.”
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by John Helmer - Friday, October 16th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

If the North American Treaty Alliance (NATO) takes seriously the threat the members believe the Russian military poses for the Saakashvili regime in Georgia, or the equally jumpy rulers of the Baltic shore, it might think twice about putting more North American beef into the borsch and pelmeni that Russian tankmen and parachutists eat each day to keep up their protein levels.

US purveyors of New York sirloins and T-bone steaks may take comfort from the defence that most US beef has long been ousted from the Russian meat market; their only sales go to the elite restaurants and hotels of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the Russian Army, USDA Prime goes only to the generals.

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by John Helmer - Thursday, October 15th, 2009
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On October 6, Sergey Frank criticized John Helmer in testimony in the UK High Court, condemning, as he has done before, Helmer’s reporting of the affairs of the Sovcomflot shipping company, headed by Frank since 2004.

On October 12, the Foreign Press Centre of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation telephoned Helmer in Moscow with a request to meet the next day with Boris Shardakov and Oleg Churilov. Shardakov is head of the office of work with foreign correspondents.

On October 13, at 4 in the afternoon, Shardakov and Churilov told Helmer that a letter addressed by Sovcomflot to the Foreign Ministry had been received. It was signed by the spokesman for Frank, Andrei Kechashin.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The Guinean government in Conakry has decided not to despatch a Foreign Ministry delegation to Moscow for the time being, while it gives negotiators from Russia’s aluminium monopoly, United Company Rusal, the chance to discuss privatisation, tax and accountingclaims next week.

Guinean sources have told Business Day that a planned trip to Russia, agreed with the Russian Foreign Ministry for last week, has beenpostponed on Conakry’s initiative. The Guinean proposal to Rusal aims at a meeting next week in a European city. Rusal mines bauxite at Kindia, and holds the mining right for the undeveloped Dian-Dian bauxite deposit. The company lost its Friguia concession and the Friguia almina refinery after a privatisation process held in 2006 was ruled invalid by a Conakry court last month.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

One of the reasons for pornography is that it provides a low-cost alternative to the real thing. Not to mention the chance to fantasize immediately about a future pleasure that isn’t likely to materialize — or to be affordable if it does.

The announcement on Tuesday of Russia’s agreement in principle to supply up to 70 billion cubic metres per annum of natural gas by pipeline to China is like that. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin needs to show that his command of Russia’s energy concessions is capable of delivering cash into the counting-house. A UK High Court trial, also under way this month in London. of claims relating to the management of the state-owned oil shipping company Sovcomflot has exposed the lengths to which Sechin, other government officials, and commercial allies in oil trading, ports and tankers, have already gone for this cash. A damage assessment in Moscow of the disclosures in the London court has the potential to cause problems for Sechin, if on top of everything, the counting-house goes short.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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First there was Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, then Qaddafi the Leader’s Little Green Book, and now, from the witness box of the UK High Court, in testimony given over four days, October 5-8, 2009, comes…
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Chinese checkers may be the closest Russia’s metal oligarchs, Igor Zyuzin (right) and Vladimir Lisin (left), have come to understanding Chinese strategy. The problem is that the game is neither Chinese, nor checkers. It’s actually an American invention, dating from the 1880s. It is based on the simple tactic of jumping your pieces further and faster into your opponent’s goal, before he can do the same to yours. As developed 15 years ago, Russian asset raiding tactics in the metal and mining sector are not more sophisticated.

Wei Chi, on the other hand — also known as Go, in Japan — is said to have been created by the Emperor Shun around 2200 BC, to train the brains of his son and heir. The game has evolved such complex strategy over the board space that a novice cannot readily understand how his space has been surrounded without apparent capture; and in the champion games, who has won and how.
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by John Helmer - Monday, October 12th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Vanity corrupts; pathological vanity corrupts pathologically. That’s when you cannot believe that others are capable of disbelieving you. An American president who is at that stage will contrive anything, including war, for his personal benefit.

For Obama to feel, as he said, “deeply humbled” when awakened by the Nobel Peace Prize telephone-call on Friday morning, you have to think that he and his intelligence agencies failed to know he was a candidate for the award, and did nothing to lobby the Norwegs against the two hundred or so other candidates. If true, he should have announced he was deeply blind-sided, deeply stupid. Then you have to accept that Obama believed from the start of the process that he deserved the award. If true, you can clinically measure the crack in the cerebellum between reality and judgement. And finally, you have to realize that Obama calculated the prize would be better for his polls than not. Given what is already known about Obama’s readiness to escalate at least one of the two losing wars he has yet to withdraw from, that last one is a piece of such cynicism he will put all of his warmongering predecessors in the shade. One-term predecessors, it might be added.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, October 11th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Sovcomflot chief executive Sergey Frank (left, centre figure) testified in the UK High Court last week that as Russia’s Minister of Transport he opposed the privatisation and IPO sale of Sovcomflot shares, despite company board and other ministry approvals starting in 2002. Under cross-examination by counsel for former CEO Dmitry Skarga (right, left figure) and questioning by Justice Andrew Smith, Frank dismissed the share sale plan, which was intended to raise $300 million to buy new ice-class oil and LNG tankers to service the Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 oil and gasfields. Implying this plan lacked “the proper price received and value”, he testified the government preferred to “sack the management and…find a better team to run the company.”

Frank denied that after losing his own ministry post, he fought against several ministers and Kremlin advisors backing the privatisation, until he was appointed CEO of the shipping company in Skarga’s place in late 2004. Asked if his takeover had been arranged by Igor Sechin (now deputy prime minister) and the oil trader Gennady Timchenko, who wanted to merge Sovcomflot with Novoship before selling shares, Frank said: “basically, my level of education giving me enough comfort to express my own vision of any issue, and that doesn’t need any support of people to say that.”
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by John Helmer - Sunday, October 11th, 2009
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