Sechin asks for a pipe to Europe, victory for Apple developers, Biden will take revenge for the explosions and a romance for techno-pessimists

Sechin promised Putin to pay three times more from exported gas than Gazprom. It's just a matter of access to the pipe

Rosneft does not leave attempts to break into the export system of Gazprom: on August 13, the chief executive officer of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, sent a letter to Putin in which he asks to allow Rosneft to export 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe a year. with the document . got acquainted Kommersant

• Sechin justifies the proposal by concern for the budget: his company is ready to pay an increased severance tax and even tie the tax not to the contract, but to the exchange price of gas in Europe. This will require changes to the Tax Code, but will bring the budget an additional 37 billion rubles a year: Rosneft is ready to pay 5 thousand rubles per thousand cubic meters, which is “more than 3.5 times” higher than the current severance tax rate for Gazprom.
• The oil monopoly does not ask the gas monopoly for direct access to the pipe (an agency agreement will suit it) and does not claim to supply Gazprom's customers. However, in the future, Rosneft does not exclude the growth of additional budget revenues up to 150 billion rubles a year. This already corresponds to 40 billion cubic meters. m - that is, in fact, the company has set its sights on a fifth of Gazprom's European exports.
• It is not clear which route Sechin wants to export gas from. But the expected volume of deliveries corresponds to the free capacity of the Opal gas pipeline (an onshore continuation of Nord Stream 1), and the letter states that the deliveries “will contribute to the removal of restrictions” from the EU antimonopoly law regarding the permissible loading of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipelines and Nord Stream 2, Kommersant notes.
• According to the publication, President Putin instructed the relevant Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to consider Sechin's proposals. The companies did not provide comments, but back in 2017, the then deputy chairman of the board of Gazprom, Alexander Medvedev, said that the company had no free capacity for Rosneft.
• Rosneft has been trying to get access to Gazprom's European pipeline for several years, but the current approach was taken at a good moment of the opponent's weakness. The letter was sent just as Gazprom was struggling to cope with a tight gas balance following a fire at its Urengoy condensate plant, in the context of half-empty storage facilities in Europe and spot prices in the region of $500 per thousand cubic meters.
• There is little doubt in the industry that Gazprom will be able to fight back this time as well. “In its current form, it’s just a matter of margin distribution: it’s not clear why it needs to be taken from Gazprom and given to Rosneft,” says a source in a major gas company.
• With all the apparent generosity of Rosneft's offer, the current netback for deliveries to Europe from its largest gas project, Rospan, would reach $250. Accordingly, even after paying 5,000 rubles of the severance tax, Rosneft's margin would have exceeded 13,000 rubles, with the average selling price of Rosneft gas on the domestic market below 4,000 rubles, the newspaper notes.

What do I get from this?

Apart from the battle between the two giants, Sechin's letter shows in which direction the Russian authorities can seek to circumvent the antitrust restrictions of the almost completed Nord Stream 2. Just this week, the Nord Stream 2 operator lost a case to withdraw the gas pipeline from the EU Gas Directive. In addition to separating production and transportation, the directive requires up to 50% of the pipeline capacity to be reserved for fuel pumping from alternative suppliers.

SIGNALS

The media turned to Putin with a demand to stop the campaign against "foreign agents"

The Russian media have appealed to Vladimir Putin and high-ranking security officials to stop the campaign against independent journalism. published their appeals Meduza , Dozhd (recognized as foreign agents in Russia), Forbes , Novaya Gazeta and other publications . Assigning foreign agent status to publications either leads to the liquidation of the media, or creates discriminatory conditions for their work, directly restricts the professional activities of journalists, Meduza writes in its appeal. The publications demand to repeal the laws on media-foreign agents, disband their registers and stop illegal criminal and administrative cases against journalists.

The Bell supports the appeals of colleagues. The status of a foreign agent actually deprives the media of the opportunity to earn money on their own, and with it, financial independence and the possibility of normal work.

ADVERTISING

How to turn customers into brand fans

To build a long-term relationship with a client, a good product is not enough. It is important to take into account the needs and pay attention to the interests of buyers. To do this, collect as much client data as possible and use it. will help with this RetailCRM . The company has prepared a guide from which you will learn exactly how a customer makes a purchase decision and what tools to use to create the best customer experience.

MONEY

Apple will allow financial relations on the side

A developer class action lawsuit filed against Apple back in 2019 has brought new results: the upcoming deal provides for the possibility of payments in applications presented on the AppStore outside the Apple ecosystem, writes The Wall Street Journal. The ability to avoid fees altogether is a big win for developers, for most of whom Apple has already reduced the standard fee from 30% to 15%. The agreement does not apply to the Fortnite creator's broader antitrust lawsuit , which is expected to resolve soon.

Ours is equally domestic

There are important changes in the regulation of domestic software, which is now the only one that can be put up for public procurement. From the draft government decree , it follows that in order to be included in the register of domestic software of the Ministry of Digital Development, developers will be required to confirm not only exclusive rights, but also the availability of qualified programmers for technical support in the state. But on the other hand, software owned by Russian companies with a head office abroad, that is, Yandex and Mail.ru, will be able to get into the register, experts say. At the same time, the industry association wants to equate open source products with domestic ones, thereby opening up access to state-owned companies and subsidies for them. In this case, companies will prefer to develop the software themselves. But its security may be insufficient, the market fears.

AFGHANISTAN

Biden will take revenge

Yesterday's series of explosions near the Kabul airport inflicted the largest single casualties on the US military in 10 years, killing thirteen US troops and at least 90 Afghan citizens. “We will find you and make you pay,” President Joe Biden vowed the day before, referring to customers. An evacuation of this magnitude (100,000 people were evacuated in two weeks) cannot be stopped or effectively defended, so there is no tactical alternative to ending it as soon as possible, even with the threat of new terrorist attacks. The Afghan branch of the (banned in Russia) Islamic State, which the (banned in Russia) Taliban is officially fighting, claimed responsibility for the bombings. If the evacuation, for all its tragedy, had passed without casualties, this would have been a great achievement for Biden, but now there is no need to talk about it, notes . Bloomberg

PRACTICE

A new novel for technopessimists

Writer Dave Eggers, best known for his dystopian novel The Sphere, has released a new book called Every. As Quartz writes, its universe strongly resembles our current reality, rising up a notch - there, for example, it depicts a smart speaker that picks up what people say and alerts the police if there is reason to suspect domestic violence. Or it shows apps that track how much sleep and exercise you get in a day (hello Apple Watch). Eggers is creating a world where veiled Facebook and Amazon have teamed up to become Every, the ultimate digital monopoly. Why is the book worth reading? Because it outlines the worst-case scenario for the development of technology, which for the time being may seem normal - as it is now. Learn more at Quartz.

Remote increases productivity

Office slavery was resented as early as the 19th century. The pandemic, for the first time in several centuries, launched a radical transformation of the professional life of white-collar workers. According to a recent study of more than 30,000 employees in the US, remote work even one day a week will increase productivity by 4.8% as the economy finally recovers from the coronavirus, writes Bloomberg . The basis of this effect is the reduction of non-productive travel time to and from work. Interestingly, the benefits of remote work were known before the lockdowns - a 2013 Stanford University study showed that working from home can increase employee productivity by as much as 13%.