The Kremlin retrieves more mineable resourcesThe Kremlin retrieves more mineable resources
By: John Helmer
Posted: '06-JUN-06 14:09' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2004
MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) --Miners do not care much about the life-cycle of insects. And neither does Russia's Minister for Natural Resources, Yury Trutnev.
Reports in the Moscow press this week, and inside his own ministry, that he will shortly be replaced are unlikely to encourage the 50-year old Trutnev to reach for the entomology textbooks, for it will be too late. He is about to discover that in the life-cycle of federal politicians, as for butterflies, once they have served their purpose, or failed to serve their purpose, they die. Trutnev should know better -- his office is across the street from the Moscow zoo, Russia's largest.
Trutnev's spokesman told Mineweb: "We have no information about the possibility of replacement of Minister Trutnev." A former senior ministry official told Mineweb the report of Trutnev's departure is "serious".
Vladimir Litvinenko is an unlikely predator of butterflies, or politicians, but he would like to be the Kremlin's choice to replace Trutnev. The rector of the St Petersburg State Mining Institute appeared last week for his first-ever, on-the-record interview with a foreign newspaper, dressed in his gold-starred academician's uniform. It is a sign that, without saying much at all, Litvinenko believes it is time again for him to be remembered. He wasn't a supporter of Trutnev's nomination two years ago, in March 2004, when the Minister of Economic Development German Gref, and the controlling shareholder of LUKoil, Vagit Alekperov, proposed taking Trutnev, an oilfield engineer by training, from the provincial governorship of the central Russian region of Perm, and putting him in charge of policing the 16,000 or so licences that have been issued since 1991 for Russia's oil, gas, and other mineable resources.
If Litvinenko is putting himself in the running for Trutnev's job, he refused to respond to questions on the subject from Mineweb. In his interview last week with the Moscow Times, owned by the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, Litvienko had just this to say: "There was a time when salt was the most important resource in the world. Then it was metal of any kind, then later it became gold. In the specific circumstances the world finds itself in today, the most important resources are hydrocarbons. They're the main instrument in our hands -- particularly in Putin's -- and our strongest argument in geopolitics. A dramatic change has taken place in the world in major energy companies' strategy and understanding, and there is an analogous situation in Russia. Instead of simply extracting resources and selling them at the highest possible price, modern energy giants ought to invest in every link of the energy chain, from geological surveys to electricity generation."
As a statement of a new Russia-first resource strategy, Litvinenko does not say much, and if he is fighting for Trutnev's job, he does not dare to.
The strategy of restricting mineable resources to Russian companies has been taking shape ever since Trutnev took his post. But in recent weeks, there has been a noticeable acceleration behind the scenes. At the end of May, Trutnev's ministry accepted a report from the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences claiming that production-sharing agreements (PSAs) for oil and gas projects being developed by Shell and Exxon on the far-eastern island of Sakhalin ought to be cancelled. Trutnev's spokesman, Rinat Gitazulin, added: "We believe that [Russia] is losing money as a result of this." He promised to review the report's recommendations, but passed the buck to the Ministry of Industry and Energy, which is in charge of PSAs and the oil and gas sector. Noone had delivered the report there.
Litvinenko had once told Mineweb that he favoured permitting foreign-owned companies in both the energy and mineral sectors to develop greenfield projects, so long as they did not derive a benefit from Soviet-era exploration at no cost. He conceded that the high development costs of offshore, continental shelf exploration might be beyond the means of Russian companies. But that was before Rosneft took over Yukos, and Gazprom Sibneft; and before oil prices jumped to $70 per barrel. Today Litvinenko refuses to say what he thinks of the advantageous tax treatment offered to foreign developers on Sakhalin.
He did tell his interviewer last week, however, that he would resist US and other foreign pressures to include major foreign-owned stakes in the Barents Sea gasfield project, known as Shtokman. "Today, Russia can fill its domestic needs and export contracts entirely using its continental gas resources. That's a fact," Litvinenko said. "The Barents Sea is a special region for our interests. "What do we need pressure from foreign companies for? We need to perfect the conception of the entire project, and only then should foreign partners be announced." The US is the principal source of pressure to be included in Shtokman, but several European companies are also contenders. The decision is much too important for Trutnev to be the decision-maker.
On Monday this week, he deputed a subordinate, Anatoly Potemkin, to disclose that the strategic targets are being expanded, raising the barrier for oil and gas, and extending it to cover nickel, copper, and possibly gold as well. While platinum has not been mentioned, its inclusion could doom Anglo Platinum's long-time venture with Eurasia to develop the first foreign-owned platinum and palladium mine in Russia -- unless the mineable reserves are too small to be of interest to Russian miners.
According to the Russian news agency version of Potemkin's remarks, his ministry is currently working on a proposal to classify Russian crude oil reserves over 150 million tons (1,095 million barrels) and Russian gas reserves of over 75 billion cubic metres as strategic in the proposed Subsoil Law, which Trutnev has been drafting and revising ever since he came to Moscow. While the crude oil reserves figure is similar to previous proposals, the gas reserve classification has changed significantly, raising the barrier for foreign entry thirteenfold. The advantage to Gazprom and to Russia's smaller, independent gas producers is obvious. All Litvinenko would say is that "Gazprom is our monster, there's no question. But it's a truly Russian monster, and we need to do all we can to make sure it is a serious player on world markets."
Potemkin also suggested that the barrier is being raised against the entry of foreign miners into the mineral sector. At present, foreign diamond-miners are precluded from holding more than 49% of the equity in a Russian diamond mine. Litvinenko used to say that foreign and domestic companies should be treated equally, implying that he favoured eliminating this restriction, which was lobbied into law several years by Alrosa. Today, Litvinenko isn't saying if he's changed his mind.
According to Potemkin, "we are considering including more natural resources in the [strategic exclusion] list. It may be nickel." This is a markedly different approach from Trutnev's past efforts to assist the principal producer of nickel in Russia, Norilsk Nickel.
In July 2004, for example, just four months into his new job, Trutnev announced that he wanted to cut the six-month time period currently required by Russian mining law for the tendering of major mineral deposits. Specifically referring to the long-delayed Sukhoi Log gold deposit in Irkutsk region, and the Udokan deposit in Chita, Trutnev announced that he was preparing an amendment to the law, shortening the tender period to 45 days. "We cannot commission a lot of large deposits for this simple reason, that, under the current law, from the date of the announcement of tender conditions to the award, it is necessary to wait about one half-year," Trutnev said, according to the text of his speech provided by the Ministry spokesman. "This is a very long time, and costly. We want to reduce this term to 45 days." He went on to hint that the Sukhoi Log tender could be issued and awarded by the end of this year.
Udokan, in southeast Siberia, has been the focus of Russian and international mining interest for more than a decade. The deposit is believed to contain 27 million tons of copper. The principal Russian bidder for the deposit is Iskander Makhmudov's Urals Mining and Metallurgy group (UGMK), which has proposed excluding Kazakh and Chinerse bidders so that it can help itself to the deposit. Without Udokan, UGMK's smelters in central Russia are rapidly running out of concentrate.
With 33 million ounces of gold in estimated reserves, Sukhoi Log is one of the largest unmined gold deposits in the world; for more than a decade it has been attracting worldwide interest among miners. In Russia, Norilsk Nickel has been keen to accelerate this tender, as principal shareholders, Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Prokhorov, have been in a hurry to include Sukhoi Log in their plan to spin off their gold assets through Polyus. International miners who have courted Potanin and Prokhorov have also courted Trutnev. They include Anglo American, Barrick Gold, BHP Billiton, and Rio Tinto, although the latter has proved to be the most wary of believing either of them enough to risk a sizeable investment.
In his 2004 speech, Trutnev also claimed that he was opposed to excluding foreign miners from the bidding for Sukhoi Log. "We do not see the necessity to create a distinct ban on foreigners. Although there are situations when the state should protect the national interest in the sphere of natural resources usage, such situations should not be resolved by administrative methods, and should be required to be registered in the law." Litvinenko told Mineweb at the time that he favoured "a system of privileges and preferences for the domestic companies." He also said he is opposed to allowing foreign investors to take shareholding control of Russian mining enterprises. Sale of shares outside Russia can be allowed, Litvinenko said, but control should be vested in a "golden share" held by the Russian government. Applying this limit on divestment by the Russian oligarchs was urgent, he said, in the cases of "Gazprom, United Energy Systems, important petroleum companies, Norilsk Nickel, and many other companies."
The threat to Norilsk Nickel took time to materialize, and when it did from the direction of Alrosa, a year ago, Litvinenko was not involved. His one intervention in the diamond-mining sector concerned the De Beers concession (Archangel diamond Corporation) in Arkhangelsk region that has been in dispute for more than seven years with Alekperov of LUKoil. Litvinenko lost his diamond-mine battle with both Trutnev and Alekperov, and the ministry ally with whom he was working lost his job to a Trutnev appointee.
The infighting has continued, but if Trutnev thought he was safe promoting the interests of Alekperov, Potanin, Prokhorov, and also Victor Vekselberg (whose expansion into South African manganese Trutnev personally endorsed), he misjudged his superiors. He has been unable to get Kremlin approval to put either Sukhoi Log or Udokan on the block. His first attempt to send his draft of the Subsoil legislation ended ignominiously when the State Duma sent it back for revision. Trutnev is now back where he started, and he's managed the cycle in less time than most other minister's in the current Russian cabinet.