The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has agreed with Global Ports on a gradual exit from dollar tariffs, Interfax reported on Monday the words of the head of the agency, Igor Artemyev. “This means that the corresponding tariff policy is changing in favor of consumers, and they will gradually withdraw from dollars, and a number of our other standard requirements,” he said.

The FAS representative declined to comment further until the court approved the settlement agreement with Global Ports. Artemyev expressed hope that the court would approve it: “For my part, I have already signed the draft and the one that we are submitting to the court.”

Most likely, the FAS and Global Ports have worked out an acceptable transition to rubles for the company, suggests Raiffeisenbank analyst Konstantin Yuminov. The company will have the opportunity to refinance foreign currency debt on time, convert it into rubles, so that there is no discrepancy between debt and revenue when the exchange rate changes, he says. Global Ports' foreign currency debt amounts to two Eurobond issues totaling $700 million with maturities in 2022 and 2023. The company's net debt at the end of the first half of 2017 amounted to $915 million.

FAS in June last year began proceedings against several stevedoring companies, including Global Ports, UCL Holdings and NCSP , on grounds of violation of antimonopoly legislation. As Global Ports noted in its report, the department considered that several of the company’s subsidiaries (First Container Terminal in St. Petersburg, Eastern Stevedoring Company, Petrolesport) have been setting and maintaining monopolistic high prices for container loading and unloading services since January 2015 , the FAS decided to return 7 billion rubles to the budget to Global Ports. and switch to payments in rubles. Global Ports noted in the report that it has always offered market, competitive prices for its services, and since the beginning of 2017 it has offered its Russian clients prices in rubles.

Representatives from Global Ports, UCL Holdings and NCSP did not respond to requests.

The problem of nominating rates in foreign currency arose after the devaluation of the ruble in the second half of 2014, recalls Mikhail Burmistrov, general director of Infoline analytics. Ruble expenses of exporters and importers increased sharply, which naturally raised questions, he says: in addition, this increase was superimposed on a period of low prices for some types of raw materials, as a result of which the share of transportation costs in the structure of product costs sharply increased.

The initiators of the transfer of payments to rubles were oil companies, for which, during the period of low oil prices, any change in the cost structure became painful, although they also sell abroad not for rubles, adds Yuminov.

In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian ports should calculate tariffs in rubles from January 1, 2018. But they will be applied with reservations for some stevedore projects, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov clarified: since there is a risk of losses for projects that have not yet reached profit.

In Russia, the cost of stevedoring services is higher than the world average, since most Russian port facilities were built over the last 15 years and are at the stage of returning investments and repaying loans raised for the implementation of projects, continues Burmistrov. At the same time, since 2016, Russian stevedores have been actively switching to settlements in rubles: for example, an analysis of tariffs of stevedoring companies in the 20 largest ports of Russia showed that more than 45% of tariffs are already denominated in Russian currency, the expert estimates.

Global Ports has already transferred tariffs with Russian clients to rubles, which, however, do not occupy a very large share of the company’s revenue, says Yuminov: most of the company’s income comes from international container companies, in this part it is difficult to understand the government’s integrity. International companies will still charge their clients prices in foreign currency, and for them there is no difference: paying Russian ports in rubles or dollars, and the ports may experience lost revenue due to exchange rate differences, says Yuminov.

Global Ports will switch to tariff calculations in rubles