MOSCOW, May 13 (RIA Novosti)
Afghanistan: Russia's chance to influence global politics again/ Gazprom betting on Japan/ Gazprom snatches Sakhalin licenses from Rosneft/ Sochi 2014 Winter Games to have first foreign investor
Izvestia
Afghanistan: Russia's chance to influence global politics again
Afghanistan is currently the focus of significant global politics. The stakes are so high and it is such a huge political game that if a country is not involved it automatically becomes a second-rate player with no influence in global politics, no matter how large or ambitious it happen to be.
For decades, Russia pursued an active policy in Afghanistan; now it has assumed a passive stance. By rushing to support the Americans' reckless initiatives of 2001-2002, and supplying weapons in abundance to the so-called Northern Alliance, which eventually brought the U.S. army to Afghanistan, Moscow in fact docilely consented to being pushed away from any clear business with Afghanistan by its own Western allies. They even "forgot" to invite Russia to the peace conference on Afghanistan convened after the Taliban was forcefully deposed.
Today, despite their hypocritical talk of "cooperation" (by which they mean the shipment of NATO military freight across Russia), the coalition is keeping Russia away from Afghanistan as much as possible, even though their own policies in Afghanistan are the worst possible example of a murderous neocolonial regime.
Mass killings of the civilian population by the American army such as bombing wedding and funeral processions, extending the fighting to Pakistan and dragging it into Afghanistan's internal ethnic and political feud - all these and similar actions, which have been without any social or commercial investment in Afghanistan, threaten the whole world, Russia included.
The Afghans, sick and tired of the pointless presence of foreign military forces, have asked Russia to restore its clear-cut peaceful Afghan policy. A delegation of influential Afghan politicians will arrive in Moscow to attend the May 14 Russian-Afghan forum. The group mainly includes Pashtun leaders, who have shaped the country's political and state backbone for centuries. They are convinced that the way to peace and agreement in Afghanistan will be determined by Russia's policy.
Vremya Novostei
Gazprom betting on Japan
A source at Russian energy giant Gazprom said the company considers Japan a client interested in importing gas on a long-term basis and believes Japan plans to channel investment and technology in gas-processing facilities, including gas-chemical production facilities, and to issue easy-term loans for the purchase of Japanese pipes and equipment, for use in Far Eastern projects.
The source was commenting on the outcome of the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Tokyo.
Gazprom, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy at the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Itochu Group, a Japanese general trading concern, and Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. (JAPEX) have signed a memorandum of understanding that will examine opportunities for refining and exporting gas from the Primorye Territory in Russia's Far East after the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas pipeline is commissioned in late 2011.
It appears that Japanese companies are ready to help Gazprom with financing for the project, as well as refining gas and creating a sales market for Sakhalin gas, due to be delivered to the Primorye Territory despite the lack of local demand.
Gazprom says annual gas demand in the Primorye Territory will not exceed 3-4 billion cubic meters in the foreseeable future. Consequently, Russia needs to export 20-25 billion cubic meters of gas via the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline on a commercial basis.
This is a vitally important task due to the lack of financial resources for implementing this and similar projects during the current financial and economic crisis.
Russian-Chinese gas-delivery talks have long been deadlocked. The impasse will not be breached while China remains a monopoly buyer. Gas exports from Vladivostok to South Korea seem far-fetched for political reasons, while economic factors are hindering the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in the Primorye Territory.
Nevertheless, Moscow is ready to give priority to the LNG project and to try and persuade Tokyo to share the relevant commercial and production risks and to force China to resume active talks with Gazprom and obtain concessions from Beijing.
Gazeta.ru
Gazprom snatches Sakhalin licenses from Rosneft
Gazprom will get the licenses to develop the Kirinsky, Ayashsky and Odoptu blocks for the Sakhalin-3 project, as well as several offshore areas in West Kamchatka, said Anatoly Ledovskikh, head of the Russian mineral resources authority, Rosnedra.
It appears that the gas monopoly has beat Rosneft to Sakhalin's resources. However, analysts say the state oil major will not be worse off for it.
Total resources at the three Sakhalin-3 blocks in question are estimated at 1.3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. Rosnedra is also drafting decisions to assign the Koryakia-1 and Koryakia-2 areas to Gazprom, Ledovskikh said, adding that it would take three to four months.
South Korea's KNOC, a former Rosneft partner, will remain in the project cooperating with the Russian gas monopoly instead.
Rosneft in fact only retains the Veninsky block at Sakhalin-3, the one it is developing with China's Sinopec, and a stake in Sakhalin-1 along with Exxon Neftegaz Ltd. (30%), India's ONGC (20%), and Japan's Sodeco (30%).
Analysts see this outcome as logical enough. "A major re-division of the markets between rival producers in Russia is on. That Rosneft has ceded its Sakhalin-3 and Kamchatka licenses to Gazprom is not surprising," said Natalia Milchakova, head of fundamental analysis at the Otkrytie financial corporation.
"Rosneft is not legally an exporter of gas, which will have to be later supplied to Japan (Russia's key Asian gas partner, with cooperation currently limited to LNG) and other Asian nations. The fact that this decision coincided with [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin's and [Gazprom CEO Alexei] Miller's visit to Japan was by no means accidental," she elaborated.
However, Rosneft's Asian interests are not being neglected by the government at all. The company won a lucrative project to supply oil to China through the ESPO pipeline, she added.
In addition, market players tend to believe Rosneft will also be compensated for the loss, possibly with some new oil and gas prospects.
"One gets the impression that the government is trying to delineate the gas business and the oil industry. At least Rosneft is being prodded to focus on oil rather than gas," concludes Vyacheslav Bunkov from the Aton brokerage.
Kommersant
Sochi 2014 Winter Games to have first foreign investor
One of Europe's largest engineering and construction companies, Todini Costruzioni Generali (TCG), and a number of other Italian firms plan to invest 600-700 million euros in building two hotel and shopping centers for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, a Russian resort city on the Black Sea.
They submitted their proposals to President Dmitry Medvedev in April, during the Russia-Italy economic forum in Moscow.
TCG could become the first foreign investor of the Sochi Olympics.
Enrico Bianco, TCG marketing manager, said the consortium, which consists of several Italian developers, is ready to implement the project with TCG acting as the coordinator. He said the two projects in Sochi could be implemented on the terms of public-private partnership.
Irina Dzyuba, commercial director of the MR Group developer, said: "At present, foreign investors are participating only in the Federation Island project in Sochi, whose general investor is an Arab financial company, Allied Business Consultants. But this project is not part of the Olympic facilities. Foreign companies have so far not been involved in Olympic projects in Sochi."
The main group of investors in the Olympic projects in Sochi includes energy giant Gazprom (a ski complex for 16,000 spectators, with hotels), Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin's holding company Interros (a 18,000-spectator ski complex in the Roza Khutor resort zone, a snowboard park for 15,000 people, and a 14,000-spectator freestyle center), and Oleg Deripaska's holding company Basic Element (the Olympic Village for 3,000 participants and a media center).
Foreign investors, who are usually happy to provide money for Olympic facilities expecting major returns, are reluctant to participate in the Sochi projects. The reasons are the global economic crisis and the fact that Russia is not on the list of countries that have a favorable investment climate, said Yulia Tseplyayeva, chief economist at Merrill Lynch in Moscow.
"The Russian government will carry the bulk of the financial burden, with Russian companies investing substantial sums and foreign firms providing only modest funds," she said.
Apart from Italy, TCG works in 10 countries with road construction accounting for 70% of its projects. It has built a metro in Algeria (463 million euros) and Olympic facilities for the 2004 Summer Games in Greece. Its revenue in 2007 stood at 421.3 million euros.
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