By John Helmer in Moscow

The Evraz Group, Russia largest steelmaker, has started a $440 million project to reconstruct the Novokuznetsk Metallurgical Combine (NKMK) mill to produce 25-metre and 100-metre rails for high-speed railway lines being built in Russia.

A company announcement says the new mill at Novokuznetsk city, in the Kemerovo region, will be commissioned in 2012, and will have production capacity for about one million tonnes of high-speed rails, including 450,000 tonnes of the 100-m type. At present, this type is not produced in Russia. According to Evraz, reconstruction of NKMK will involve a new automatic rail-rolling line, as well as rail hardening and straightening equipment to bring the product up to the quality standard of imports.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, April 2nd, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

China has joined an English peer, a Bush Administration retiree, and a special Kremlin envoy in the attempt to persuade or pressure the Guinean Government into halting its court proceedings and fraud and tax audits of international mining companies, and restore concession rights, corruptly acquired, to Guinea’s resource treasure. At stake for China is access for Chinalco, the state-owned metals and mining company, to the Simandou iron-ore concession — one of the largest unmined reserves of iron-ore in the world.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow and Conakry

Alexey Vasiliev, a Russian professor specializing in the history of Saudi Arabia, flew to the west African republic of Guinea last week in a bid to lobby the Guinean Prime Minister, Jean-Marie Dore, on behalf of United Company Rusal, the bauxite and alumina producer in Guinea. Rusal is the largest Russian company currently operating in Africa.

Vasiliev’s mission was also to make it appear that the Kremlin wants Guinea to take its teeth out of Rusal, whose mines and an alumina refinery in Guinea are under threat of licence revocation, and of a billion-dollar damages claim currently being prepared by Guinean government auditors and international experts.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
No Comments »

March 30, 2010

Stephanie Baker and Yuriy Humber for the athletic feat of reporting Mikhail Prokhorov’s all-win business career without detecting a single foul, penalty, or loss.

Link: http://johnhelmer.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Mikhail-Prokhorov-May-2010.pdf
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

In an unusual break with the traditional hold Russian steel companies like to keep on their domestic coking-coal sources, and secure the future expansion of their steel capacity with ample reserves, the Evraz group is reported to be considering the sale of two of its Kemerovo mines to global and regional rival, ArcelorMittal. If they are good mines, why is Evraz selling? And if they are bad ones, why is ArcelorMittal buying? ArcelorMittal, which initiated the industry reports of the asset deal, has firmly silenced the tongue that was wagging; Evraz refuses to open its mouth at all.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, March 29th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

It’s fashionable in trade these days, especially when delicate consumer sensitivities are involved, to call a slaughter-house a meat-packing plant, as if what goes in the front-door can be made to seem as tasteful as what goes out the back. The German slogan, “Arbeit Macht Frei”, tried the technique on human beings. For the livestock concerned, the smell is always the giveaway.

In Russian business, it’s the prospectuses which release the tell-tale odour. What’s remarkable about this tell-tale prospectus is who is doing the telling – one of the largest and most powerful of Russian state companies, accompanied and advised by the state-controlled bank, VTB, pointing the finger at the Prosecutor-General.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, March 29th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried sweet-talking the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Jabr al-Thani, in Moscow this week on “closer coordination” between the world’s leading exporters of natural and liquefied gas (LNG). At stake are the growing deliveries of shipborne Qatari LNG to European ports, versus the shrinking deliveries of Russian natural gas to the same market, across land by pipeline.

Qatar more than doubled its shipments of LNG into the European market last year, to 15.9 billion cubic metres. Gazprom is estimated to have suffered a reduction of 19 bcm delivered to Europe in the same period; about half of that loss was made up by Qatar.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, March 26th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Visits by politicians to banana boats are almost unprecedented outside the tropical climes; no Russian prime minister has ever boarded one before. Almost as rare is it for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to favour a foreign-owned shipping enterprise when it is competing against a Russian enterprise owned, not only by a fellow St. Petersburger, but the oligarch in his sector.

So who gained, and why, from Putin’s presence aboard the Maersk Niamey in St. Petersburg port on Monday?
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 25th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who also chairs the Russian bailout bank Vnesheconombank (VEB), asked Friday for the US Government to signal its support for at least two oligarch-owned Russian companies in the US.

The remark, which has taken State Department officials by surprise, mentioned Norilsk Nickel and steelmaker Severstal, whose controlling shareholders are Vladimir Potanin and Alexei Mordashov, respectively. But Putin is believed to be thinking also of two other, heavily indebted oligarch groups with American interests and US bank obligations — steelmaker Evraz, controlled by Roman Abramovich (left image), and Oleg Deripaska (right image), owner of United Company Rusal and the Basic Element automobile group.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, March 22nd, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

In the first of a worldwide series of trials scheduled against JP Morgan Chase, the US-based banking colossus, a judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney decided last week that an attempt by JP Morgan to claim A$50.18 million (dollars are Australian unless noted) in fees was “capricious, unreasonable and unjust”. He also ruled that, before JP Morgan launched its lawsuit, the bank had received a $20 million payment for services rendered that was too much, with the balance to be refunded.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Sunday, March 21st, 2010
No Comments »