MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) President Putin's last G8 summit: cold parting/ Official decision on Kovykta to be decisive for foreign investors/ Statoil set to develop Russian deposits/ President Putin should choose more worthy successors/ More Russians feel optimistic - opinion pollster
Gazeta
President Putin's last G8 summit: cold parting
The G8 summit opening today in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm will be Vladimir Putin's last as Russia's head of state. He will probably remind western partners of Russia's concerns caused by U.S. missile shield deployment plans and the proposal granting independence to the breakaway region of Kosovo, knowing it is unlikely he will be able to influence the final outcome.
President George Bush and the European leaders are equally unlikely to persuade Putin into signing the Energy Charter, which means this meeting will go ahead in the coldest atmosphere of all G8 summits ever attended by Russia.
Russia is not expecting any breakthrough. "Russia and the West differ increasingly on the most burning international issues. The summit will only confirm this," expert Dmitry Oreshkin told Gazeta. "They will of course make bids at rapprochement, because neither side is interested in open confrontation. But the total negative balance is too large," explained Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group.
Another expert, Mark Urnov from the Ekspertiza Foundation for analytical programs, said Russia would certainly face more criticism, but no compromise would be reached on the energy issue. "The Energy Charter undermines the Russian government's energy policy aimed at ensuring state control over the energy sector," he said.
The criticism will not be too harsh, according to Alexei Malashenko from the Moscow Carnegie Center, because "the most important decisions will be made on the sidelines of the summit and will not be announced to the public."
Alexander Rahr, a member of the German Council for Foreign Policy, said Germany was not planning to make Russia a "whipping boy" at the summit. According to him, this summit must show Putin and the Russian elite that Russia has been integrated and bears equal responsibility for the global order with other G8 countries. As for missile defense and democracy issues, these can be discussed at other international meetings, for example, at the Bush-Putin bilateral meeting next month, Rahr said.
Vedomosti
Official decision on Kovykta to be decisive for foreign investors
The future of the Kovykta deposit in Eastern Siberia, one of Russia's largest gas condensate deposits, will be decisive for the development of the investment climate in Russia - either the state will stop its expansion, or it will become more open in its relations with foreign companies.
Government officials have been threatening to withdraw Russian-British TNK-BP's license to develop the field since 2000.
Contrary to expectations, the Russian Federal Agency for the Management of Subsoil Resources did not postpone the decision for another two weeks June 1.
TNK-BP's management hopes to keep the license through negotiations or by changing the terms of the licensing agreement. However, experts doubt that will happen.
In the future, the field may be included on the list of strategic deposits, and it will hardly be outside Gazprom's sphere of interests.
Valery Nesterov, an analyst with the Troika Dialog investment company, said that in two weeks' time, the license is likely to be revoked.
Analysts from the Aton investment company also believe TNK-BP will lose control over Kovykta, but they are more optimistic about its future, reasoning that the company's value has been underestimated.
Perhaps, TNK-BP has good prospects without the Kovykta field, though the developments around the field are more important than a company's capitalization.
There are quite a few signs showing that the delay in revoking the license is not a long-term positive signal to investors and the G8 partners, but rather a technical trick and an attempt to reduce tensions prior to the summit.
It is a myth that Gazprom is not interested in Kovykta. The gas giant badly wants to boost its output. After the license is taken from TNK-BP, it will cost Gazprom much less than its entry into the Kovykta project at a market price. Recently, the Sakhalin case seemed to be an achievement compared to the Yukos case. Gazprom paid a market price (albeit with a discount) for participation in the Sakhalin-II project. The Kovykta case may prove a failure, and then the next Russian president will find it difficult to explain the formula "tough in politics, soft in economics" at the next G8 summit.
Kommersant
Statoil set to develop Russian deposits
Norwegian oil and gas giant Statoil, which has been operating in Russia for the last 15 years, could finally receive the right to develop local deposits.
On Tuesday, Gazprom Neft, the oil production unit of energy giant Gazprom, and Statoil announced the creation of a working group to evaluate bilateral cooperation opportunities in Russia and abroad.
Industry experts said in order for foreign companies to operate in Russia they should share their technology and provide all the finance in the initial stages of the project.
"Although Gazprom Neft plans to exploit at the Prirazlomny oil deposit in the Barents Sea, but cash-strapped Russian companies lack the required technology," Valery Nesterov, an analyst with Troika Dialog brokerage, said.
Maxim Shein, an analyst with Broker Credit Service, said Statoil, which has developed all hydrocarbon deposits in the North Sea, also has to cooperate with Russian companies. Statoil could use the same equipment on Russia's Arctic shelf, but it is unclear how companies would share oil dividends and who would finance the geological prospecting operations.
Shein said Gazprom Neft could copy the experience of state-owned oil company Rosneft and request that Statoil finance all operations. Under a bilateral agreement, the company would be given a refund once oil production begins.
Gazprom Neft and U.S. oil giant Chevron recently established a joint venture; and Chevron is financing the prospecting operations at four deposits owned by the Russian company.
MDM-Bank analyst Andrei Gromadin said $1-$4 million is required to drill an oil well, but offshore drilling operations on the continental shelf could cost over $60 million, depending on the depth of a well and complexity of work.
Gazeta.ru
President Putin should choose more worthy successors
Russians are convinced that President Vladimir Putin is the only leader who can cope with national problems.
Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, Putin's right-hand man, is supported by only 1% of those polled, whereas nobody wants to entrust important state tasks to Fradkov's deputies Alexander Zhukov and Sergei Naryshkin.
President Putin should consider more competent successors than the two first deputy prime ministers, Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, for their business ratings are just 7% and 4 %, respectively.
A total of 6% said Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, could accomplish complex objectives, whereas only 5% are counting on Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, the upper parliament house.
Russians do not trust regional governors, presidential envoys in federal districts, and the business elite either.
St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, another prospective presidential candidate, is trusted by only 1% of respondents. Dmitry Kozak, Presidential Envoy to the Southern Federal District, and Vladimir Yakunin, CEO of Russian Railways, enjoy zero popularity.
Against the backdrop of the all-out lack of faith in the government and widespread disappointment, the 7% popularity ratings of Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, seem quite impressive.
The latest survey by influential pollster Levada Center indicated that 53% of respondents are ready to vote for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. However, only 11% believe that Boris Gryzlov can independently accomplish state objectives, without asking Putin's advice and without the Kremlin's support.
In all, 38% of those polled think that Putin is the only one who can deal with domestic and international problems. Another 25% said no other candidate could create jobs for all, facilitate economic prosperity, improve the international situation, stifle corruption, and defeat terrorism.
It appears that Russia could be plunged into chaos if incompetent officials take over after Putin steps down.
Izvestia
More Russians feel optimistic - opinion pollster
For the first time since the turn of the century, most Russians believe their country is developing in the right direction. At the end of May, the Public Opinion Fund said that 52% of respondents were social optimists. An even greater percentage - 54% - said life in Russia had improved over the past year. Other big name market research organizations also have similar results. According to analysts, positive sentiments are increasingly on the rise in the country.
Social experts give several possible explanations for the change. "In 2003 or so," said Alexander Oslon, foundation president, "people stopped comparing their current status with the high stress they experienced in the 1990s." According to him, by that time Vladimir Putin's electorate had lost about 15% of its supporters, with some senior citizens reverting to their old favorites - the KPRF and Yabloko - ahead of the last State Duma elections. "But at the same time, also in 2003, the Putin majority received an injection from those who reached adulthood after 2000," Oslon said.
"They are different," sociologists said describing the 21st century generation. Young people have few memories of the Soviet era, and they do not miss it. Strikingly, Russians who graduated from school after 2000 feel for the most part quite comfortable in the social and economic environment of Putin's presidency.
Never before has Russian history seen such a wide gap between those satisfied and dissatisfied with the changes: 54% against 16%. And among 18-year- to 35-year olds the gap is wider still: 62% to 11%.
Experts have discovered a fundamentally important feature of the current mindset, typical of all ages. Society equally abhors stagnation and radical reforms. Its motto today is: "Stability and change."
"These concepts seem to be mutually exclusive," Oslon said. "But our study has shown that for most of the population, change for the better and stability are practically the same. Stability, as understood today, is not a pause, but an advance towards a predictable future."
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