Give the pipe!

Russia paves a transit route to Europe in Moscow with a one-day visit by the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fitzo. He held negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov on oil and gas and was able to get guarantees of energy supply for the coming years. But with the hope of returning to the ownership of the Slovak Republic, the shares of the local oil company Transpetrol, which owned the pipeline included in the Friendship system, broke up.

Gas and pipes

“The controversial situation around the stake in Slovak Transpetrol, which belonged to Yukos, will be resolved in the interests of Russia and Slovakia,” Mikhail Fradkov said on Friday following negotiations. “We have an action plan agreed at all levels, and we are guided by it.”

The essence of the problem: in 2002, Energy Pepuria Mikhail Khodorkovsky for $ 74 million acquired 49% of the shares of Slovak Transpetrol, which owns pipelines in the territory of Slovakia, connected to the Druzhba system. The management of these shares was carried out through the Dutch "daughter" of Yukos, and only recently the bankruptcy manager of the bankrupt company Eduard Rebgun defended the right to dispose of these shares in court. The Slovak government, in turn, expressed a desire to buy Transpetrol shares. Fitz explained this desire as follows: "Slovakia is vitally interested in connecting the oil pipeline with the oil refinery near Vienna, which could diversify oil sales." However, Russia has other plans for this package: Gazprom claims to be the state as the main fighter for attractive energy acts in Europe.

A joint plan of action, which the Russian prime minister spoke about, was finally agreed a few hours before his meeting with Robert Fitzo. Then, when the Prime Minister of Slovakia came to meet Vladimir Putin in Novo-Ogravo.

The president accepted the Slovak delegation heat and immediately began the conversation on the merits: "Russia supplies hydrocarbons to Slovakia, your country is a great transiter, I know that business entities are considering the possibility of expanding cooperation in this area." Slovak prime minister, interested in increasing the transit of Russian oil, is also aware that his country was in energy dependence on Moscow. "In 2008, the gas supply contract ends, the gas price determines the socio -economic situation in our country. Moreover, Slovakia is almost 98% enjoys oil supplies from Russia. There is a little better, the contract is valid until 2014," Robert Fitzo said. Actually, after this phrase, it became clear that Slovakia was ready to give in to the TRANSPETROL shares in the exchange for a good gas contract and loading of oil pipelines. It was about this that as a result, they agreed.

Pipes and oil

Today, the Russian government will continue the attack on the European energy resources market. Following the prime minister of Slovakia, the head of the Bulgarian government, Sergei Stanishev, flew to Moscow. In his program, however, a meeting is not planned with President Vladimir Putin. However, if Stanishev and Mikhail Fradkov will be able to name the exact date of the start of the construction of the Burgas -Alexander Polys oil pipeline, then it is possible that Putin will still accept Stanishev. After all, the commissioning of this oil pipeline will allow Russia to increase oil supplies to Europe by more than 30 million tons annually.

In addition to oil and gas negotiations, Stanishev will sign an agreement on intellectual property protection in Moscow. For Russia, this document is especially important - at the end of last year, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov accused Sofia that she “shamelessly violates copyright and makes Kalashnikov’s false automatic machines in huge quantities, supplies them around the world under the Kalashnikov brand. Ivanov estimated the loss of Russia from weapons piracy in billions of dollars.

However, not only Russia has claims to Bulgaria. In a month, the European Union report on the fight against corruption in Bulgaria will be published. Against this background, it was announced that the Minister of Economics of this country Rumen Ovcharov (he comes to Moscow as part of the delegation) immediately upon returning to Sofia, he would be sent on vacation in connection with the investigation of the corruption scandal. This is a high -profile case, according to experts, can affect the content of the report, and if the EU decides that Sofia is not fighting corruption enough, he will deprive Bulgaria of multimillion -dollar subsidies for the development of the economy.

Who will get the Slovak inheritance of Yukos?

Evgeny Yasin , Scientific Director of the State University - Higher School of Economics:

I think that it will still try to get Rosneft, but there are several specific conditions. The pressure from the Kremlin does not work, so everything will depend on the price. It is quite difficult to talk about the results now. For local Slovak businessmen, this is too large expenses, but some other foreign firms are quite capable of overtaking Rosneft.

Elena Korzun , General Director of the Association of Small and Medium oil and Gas Maintaining Organizations:

The Slovak inheritance of Yukos will go to the Russian state. Most likely, it will be either Gazprom Neft or Rosneft.

Mikhail Delyagin , Director of the Institute of Problems of Globalization:

Slovakia is a member of the European Union and an extremely poor country, so they will relate to the issue much more zealously than the Lithuanians. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the current state of relations between Russia and the EU, and the case of Yukos outside our country understands everything correctly. If Slovakia cannot legally pick up these assets, then there will be a bargain, but bargaining is already, in general, good relations, these are people who respect each other. And the European Union can exert a very large pressure on Slovakia.

That is, in the end, everything will depend on legal nuances, but you can be absolutely sure that Russia will not get the Slovak inheritance in any case. Because representatives of various groups of the ruling bureaucracy to Russia have a purely formal, purely status attitude. At the same time, I would still prefer the assets to go to our bureaucracy, because then it would be easier to return them.

Sergey Grigoryev , Vice President of OJSC "AK" Transneft ":

I don’t know, we are not in the subject on this issue and monitor the situation by the media. I can’t even suggest the fate of the inheritance, and indeed we are somehow not much interested in this.

05/06/2007 / Andrei Lavrov, the survey was prepared by Alexei Smirnov, the material was published in the "newspaper" No. 80 dated 07.05.2007.