By John Helmer in Moscow
Putin names his merry men, no change in the forest
The list of the new Russian government ministers, released by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin this afternoon, preserves most senior officials in their place, and keeps the precarious balance of factions, which compete for and decide Russia’s major resource concessions, and the [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
In the good old days, when intrepid Englishmen competed with Russians for commercial and military footholds in Central Asia, the object of their Great Game was to fill the local bazaars with English manufactured goods, and extract in exchange as much treasure as the locals could be gulled into giving [...]

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By John Helmer in Moscow
Acron reports big jump in complex fertilizer revenue, but Uralkali tanks on potash nerves.
Acron, Russia’s leading producer of complex fertilizers, has reported that in the first quarter to March 31, sales revenue reached $493 million; that is a jump of 72%, compared with the corresponding quarter of 2007. It is the [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Herbies beats aluminium into profit shares
Herbert Smith, one of the largest billing of the UK law firms, has been forced to reveal this month in the UK High Court that it is charging the Tajikistan government more than $100 million for a 3-year court claim ordered by the Tajik President, Imomali [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
The Novorossiysk Shipping Company (Novoship) disappointed Moscow maritime analysts and the stock market today with FY 2007 financial results, just issued. Reported revenues totaled $615.3 million, 10% above the 2006 figure, but below consensus estimates and projections by transport analysts at Renaissance Capital and Finam. Net profit was reported at [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Deripaska is obliged to pay Prokhorov more to leave one uncertainty for a greater one
Oleg Deripaska, owner of United Company Rusal, the global aluminium producer, has invited a small group of reporters to have an Easter luncheon with him at Café Pushkin this Saturday.
The hors d’oeuvre is the [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
At current prices, old King Coal is a merry old soul in Russia.
In the bad old days, when Boris Yeltsin was in charge of Russia, all you had to do to acquire a steelmill on the cheap was to cut off its gas, electricity, iron-ore, scrap metal, or its coking coal. [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Uralkali reports spot price for potash goes above $1,000 a tonne as shortages bite.
Uralkali and its global sales agent, Belarusian Potash Company (BPC), revealed this morning that spot-price cargoes of potash will fetch more than $1,000 per tonne of standard grade, including freight and insurance (CIF). Higher grade granular potash will [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Russian boom creates beauty contest for European steel investors.
The rapid acceleration in iron-ore and coal costs can be camouflaged on the books of a vertically integrated steelmaker, who supplies his own raw materials to his own blast furnaces. But mineral cost inflation has begun to hurt, even in integrated steel industries [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
MOSCOW - The magnitude and growth rate of demand from China still drives global commodity prices. But in the fertilizer sector, where China this month has had to agree to a price for potash more than double what it paid last year, the inflexibility of Chinese demand for food has made [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Russian energy giant makes gains in Africa and Europe
The days when American journalists wandered around Tripoli, acting as covert target spotters for the US Air Force to target Muammar Qaddafi for assassination, are gone. The maverick Berber has outlived, outwitted, outsourced, and outprofited five US presidents, four Russian heads of [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
New Russian diamond mine is bigger and better.
Blind Man’s Buff is a game which, in King Henry the Eighth’s time, was played by men at court to grope for ladies.These days it entertains children to hide from the blindfolded one, who plays “it”, and must catchwhoever he can, until no-one is [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Poor performance and uncertain prospects dog Russian steel and mining magnate Mordashov and management reshuffle not seen as improving the situation.
Severstal, Russia’s third ranked steelmaker, is far from the Titanic, but seat-changing at the steel and mining group has failed to convince steel industry observers and the Moscow stock market that [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
LUKoil ends raid against Archangel Diamond’s Russian project, opening up new mine possibility.
Grib is Russian for mushroom, and this isn’t the season for harvesting them. Grib is also the name of a diamond pipe, first discovered in northwestern Russia in 1996 — and the target of a Russian raid ever since.Until [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Potash prices are soaring and the major beneficiary is LSE quoted Uralkali, Russia’s largest producer.
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. That is what the Dutch used to say, while watching their tulips grow.
But for the world’s potash miners, meeting this month in Canada, a bushel [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Russia’s big copper contest goes on the boil
Russia’s biggest copper contest is going to be a very private affair. Even if there are just two, possibly three contenders, all Russian household names, predicting who will win over the next 90 days of the contest may prove to be more frustrating than [...]

Norilsk Nickel shareholders ask where the cash for the new deal will come from
Oleg Deripaska and his United Company Rusal were trounced in their bid to elect three directors on the Norilsk Nickel board today. The vote saw Vladimir Potanin’s Interros holding, plus most of the free float of 40%, put a full-stop to Rusal’s [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Russian miners’ union confident of gaining strike demands as Rusal postpones legal action.
Striking bauxite miners at the Rusal-owned Severuralsk mine, in central Russia, have called off their occupation of one of the mine shafts, on signs that Rusal is ready to make wage, welfare, and other labour contract concessions.
A spokesman for [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Polyus shareholders give Potanin big win over rival plan to transfer assets.
In Harold Pinter’s play, The Birthday Party, a group of seedy characters in a rundown boarding house, at a miserable English seaside town, arrange a birthday celebration for one of their number. But he denies it’s his birthday, and [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Underground mine costs are pushing Alrosa towards diamond prospects in southwestern Africa
Back in the good old friendly days,one thing was always understood by the senior executives and mine engineers of De Beers and Alrosa, the world’s diamond mining leaders. Alrosa faced serious risks and incalculable costs in trying to mine [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
An unprecedented strike by Russian bauxite miners halts Rusal production in Urals
Richard the Lionheart (1157-99) was the greatest of English soldiers; the greatest artilleryman of all time. In laying siege to an enemy’s position, Richard applied the principle of concentrating force at the point of least resistance – bombarding a castle [...]

After a series of battles with Newmont, Indonesian officials and NGOs keep up the anti-mine fight, this time targeting the Toka Tindung gold project.
Author: John Helmer
Posted: Monday , 31 Mar 2008
LONDON -
The boomerang is an Australian aboriginal word for a throwing stick; but the weapon itself isn’t indigenous to Australia. Its [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Russian multi-mineral fertilizer group calls for investor upgrade ahead of IPO.
Traced on the map, Verkhnekamskoye (”Upper Kama”) looks like a molar tooth, with an unusually deep root. On the ground, in the Perm region of central Russia, it is the second largest deposit of potash known in the world.
About 3.8 [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Deripaska and Prokhorov holding companies trade claims over Norilsk Nickel deal contract.
Onexim, the Moscow holding unit for Mikhail Prokhorov, has broken its silence on the troubled sale of a 25% stake in Norilsk Nickel — in a manner of speaking.
Terms for the deal between Prokhorov and Oleg Deripaska, [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
When T.S. Eliot was summing up what he knew of hollow men, he concluded: “this is the way the world ends/not with a bang but a whimper”. This is also the way Russia’s biggest-ever hostile takeover, Oleg Deripaska’s bid to take control of Norilsk Nickel, is ending.
The contract deadline for deal [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
The wind-chill factor this winter in Tajikistan has produced record low temperatures and uncounted miseries for a population struggling with inadequate electricity supply and failing heat. Tajik newborns have been reported as having died from hypothermia while in hospital wards.
But on March 5, a single whistle-blow from the International Monetary [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
PR spin battles US recession to hype Russian steel deal
Taylor Rafferty is an international public relations company which works for Alexei Mordashov, the controlling shareholder of Severstal, third ranked Russian steelmaker. Its job is to help Mordashov extricate his foot from his mouth, and his hand from public shareholder pockets.
Mordashov can [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Polyus public shareholders in the dark about proposed new gold mine asset sale
Sixty years elapsed between the first US patents issued for the yo-yo, and 1928, when the wooden axle on a string became a fad in California, and then spread across the US. By 1965, the yo-yo was so [...]

By John Helmer in Moscow
Uralkali keeps the initiative as potash breaks $600.
A series of Russian government decisions this month, awarding new mining licences at a premium valuation; imposing export duties; and regulating the domestic price of fertilizers for the next five years has triggered fresh forecasts for the direction of Russian potash producers, now the [...]