Gogol in the avant-garde style. Opera "Sorochinskaya Fair"

Leading expert of the Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists of Russia Rustam Tankaev on why oil companies, consumers and sellers of fuel have become hostages of the insatiable appetites of the state budget, and what needs to be done to ensure that the retail price of fuel in Russia decreases.

Several at once important events and statements attracted the attention of Constantinople on the domestic and global hydrocarbon markets. Thus, large global oil traders predict an increase in oil prices above $100 per barrel for the first time since 2014 against the backdrop of US anti-Iranian sanctions.

At the same time, Gazprom fell in the S&P Global Platts ranking (an assessment based on their financial indicators such as asset value, revenue, profit and return on investment) from first to 17th place in the annual ranking of the 250 largest energy companies. However, another domestic company, Lukoil, rose four places and took second position. The leader was the American ExxonMobil.

The top five also included Phillips 66, E.On and China Energy. Positive dynamics were also demonstrated by Surgutneftegaz, which rose from 165th to 35th place, and Bashneft (from 75th to 72nd). Meanwhile, consumers, oil companies and independent fuel sellers have become hostages to the insatiable appetites of the state budget, which is replenished from the pockets of Russian consumers. Despite the fact that the real disposable income of households, as recognized by official statistics, continues to decline. These topics are in the program “Pronko. Economics” we discussed in detail with the leading expert of the Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists of Russia Rustam Tankaev.

Yuri Pronko. Major oil traders predict that oil prices will rise above hundreds of dollars per barrel for the first time since 2014 amid anti-Iranian sanctions from Washington. Rustam Ulanovich, with your help I want to figure out what is happening. On the one hand, the meeting held in Algeria confirmed that the OPEC countries and the members of the large, let’s say, agreement do not intend to follow Washington’s lead. And these menacing tweets from Mr. Trump have no effect on them.

On the other hand, we see that the situation in Venezuela and Iran clearly indicates that supplies will most likely decrease, and they are indeed decreasing. Can we expect $100, maybe even $150 per barrel?

Rustam Tankaev. As for Venezuela, production continues, but goes into the black zone. In fact, the leadership in the country has lost power. If since 2014, when we analyzed in detail the supply of oil and petroleum products from Venezuela, the volume of smuggling was 20 million tons per year, now it has increased many times over. This does not mean that they began to produce less petroleum products and produce less oil. This means that customs services have stopped recording it.

Yu.P. But at the same time, export supplies continue?

R.T. Continue. Therefore, in fact, the devil is not as terrible as he is painted. As for Iran. During the worst period of the first wave of sanctions in 2012, Iran's oil exports fell to 0.8 million barrels per day. Apparently, this is the minimum that a market independent of the United States provides. That is, the Chinese market.

It is clear that now from the level of 1 million 900 thousand barrels per day, oil exports from Iran will not fall to 0.8. Why is that? Firstly, there are other buyers who are ready to buy Iranian oil. Not only China. Because the prestige of the United States has fallen quite significantly. They greatly damaged relations, including with the European Union. And there are countries in the European Union, I will not list, this is a political question, who, apparently, will not stop any supplies from Iran.

I must remind you that even after sanctions were introduced against Iran in 2010, final compliance was achieved only two years after their introduction. The Europeans resisted very strongly. Now they will resist many times stronger.

Yu.P. If you look closely at those countries that have invested in the Iranian economy, you will understand what Mr. Tankaev is talking about.

R.T. And there is a third circumstance. During the previous stage of sanctions, the Iranians spoiled relations with Russian oil companies. There was a swap scheme in place. That is, Russian oil was supplied to the north of Iran in the Caspian zone, and a similar amount was given to the Persian Gulf. It was already Russian oil. It could have been transported by Russian tankers. But they did not deliver enough oil and were heavily in debt. Therefore, the scheme was broken. An intergovernmental agreement has now been signed between Russia and Iran to guarantee these supplies.

Yu.P. That is, they delivered a million, and there should be a million barrels at the exit in the Persian Gulf?

R.T. Yes. In fact, there are 500 thousand barrels per day in and out. Such interesting picture. In fact, this means that even in the worst case scenario, Iran's oil exports will fall from 1.9 million to 1.3. But even this is doubtful. 600 thousand barrels per day are easily compensated by both Russia and Saudi Arabia. Therefore, all these terrifying rumors are inspired mainly by the United States.

Yu.P. It turns out we’re not expecting $100?

R.T. You can pump up such a jump for a short time. But you need to understand what kind of dollar it will be. Because the dollar is very different. The dollar exchange rate against gold changes very much, and the Federal backup system USA. There is direct evidence of this. If the dollar loses a lot of weight and loses its gold equivalent, the price could rise very strongly. But what kind of dollar will it be? Like in that children's cartoon - and in parrots I am much longer.

Yu.P. Are we talking about an actual devaluation of the US dollar, at least in relation to physical gold?

R.T. It's a different process. But the dollar exchange rate against gold, that is, the price of gold in dollars, changed quite smoothly, if we talk about average indicators. If we look at the average annual indicators, the graph of changes in the price of oil exactly coincides with the graph of changes in the price of gold. This picture is funny. Yes, prices can be 100-150 dollars. But they will remain at the same level. They will still amount to 15 grams of gold per ton of oil.

Yu.P. I remember last week the Russian Energy Minister, Mr. Novak, said that the price of oil could reach $50 per barrel as early as next year.

R.T. Maybe. In the event that the dollar becomes thicker against gold.

Yu.P. That is, if a turn in the opposite direction occurs.

R.T. Yes, if the price of gold is as low as possible.

Yu.P. In other words, it is almost impossible to predict the price of a barrel. The relationship between the Federal Reserve and Trump is very peculiar. He shakes his fist at them, and the Fed responds with the same fist, maybe even a double one.

R.T. Why change the price of oil by changing the price of gold? In order to make money. And no matter how you knock your fists, Trump is a businessman, and the Fed is also a businessman.

Yu.P. That is, they are more likely to find each other mutual language?

R.T. In this regard, of course, they will find a common language with each other, because we are talking about buying futures at some points, and at other times dumping these futures on the market. And that's all, this is speculation and making money.

Yu.P. Sooner or later they will play with derivatives. This is my value judgment. Because it's a dangerous game. You can literally outsmart yourself.

R.T. Someday this will happen. It is possible that this has already happened. We simply do not see the consequences, they have not manifested themselves explicitly, but they will manifest themselves in the near future.

Yu.P. In your opinion, what level is most comfortable for Russian companies? The current one we are seeing, or even $50 a barrel, pessimistic forecast Mr. Novak, is it acceptable to us?

R.T. For us, in fact, any level above $40 per barrel is acceptable.

Yu.P. So the $40 level is critical for us?

R.T. Yes, it is included in the tax calculation system. The point is that stability needs to be ensured. Not that important high level prices as stability. For companies, why is this so? Because our tax system is designed in such a way that everything that a company receives above 40 is withdrawn through taxes, which are revised every month.

Yu.P. You indicated the price level when the domestic fuel and energy complex will feel uncomfortable, not so much critical. But meanwhile, the largest Russian corporation Gazprom, all publications trumpet this, and with this wording, “collapsed” from first to 17th place in the annual ranking of the 250 largest energy companies according to SNP. At the same time, another Russian company - Lukoil - rose 4 steps and took second position. The leader was the American ExxonMobil.

Among other Russian companies, positive dynamics were demonstrated by Surgutneftegaz, which rose from 165th to 35th place, and Bashneft (from 75th to 72nd position). The SNP evaluates companies based on their financial performance. Such as asset value, revenue, profit and return on investment.

Rustam Ulanovich, we were informed that our everything, as they position themselves, our wealth has collapsed from 1st to 17th place.

R.T. Who is whose property here is the question. Is Gazprom our property or are we the property of Gazprom? I think, rather, we are the property of Gazprom. Regarding this rating. It is built on interim financial indicators, not annual ones. During the year, companies produce various types of financial operations, which can only be understood and taken into account when detailed analysis. And such brief intermediate results do not imply the possibility of such an assessment. There are simply no indicators.

Yu.P. So it’s not even a result, it’s an interval?

R.T. This is the gap. Everyone has probably noticed that work is beginning on laying the Nord Stream 2 pipe. How much money do you think it costs? Where does Gazprom’s money go, given that the companies that are its partners are sitting and shaking, afraid of US sanctions? Either Trump says that there will be no sanctions, then some other representatives of the US leadership say that there will be sanctions. Naturally, there is complete uncertainty. As a result, at a meeting with Merkel, Putin gave an unequivocal personal guarantee that Russia would fully finance Nord Stream 2 without the participation of partners. Even if there are sanctions, the partners will not suffer.

Thus, Gazprom is now forced to invest huge amounts of unplanned money in the development of this new project. Naturally, Gazprom’s financial indicators sank. Why be surprised? As for Lukoil, the situation there is somewhat different. He greatly reduced investment, including in Arctic projects, there were huge losses, we remember the well that was drilled in Eastern Taimyr. It's sad, but true. Therefore, it is clear that Lukoil’s interim results turned out to be better.

Yu.P. But do SNP analysts understand that this is an intermediate result? Why is this still being done?

R.T. I've worked for companies like SNP. I know very well how these ratings are built and how employee motivation is built. Let me give you an example from British Petroleum. I once participated in the work on the annual bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada, a long time ago, about 20 years ago, and at the same time I asked the head of this process a question: statistics is such a thing that the range of values is quite wide, from this spectrum what do we choose? There are links to everything, official opinion. He told me: we choose what is beneficial to the Queen of Great Britain. This is how all rating agencies work, and this is how all agencies that do consulting, comparison, and so on work.

I represent the same agency. Naturally, we work in the interests of our country.

Yu.P. There is one more topic that I would like to discuss with Mr. Tankaev. Consumers, oil companies, and independent fuel sellers in Russia have actually become hostages to the insatiable appetite of the state budget, which is replenished from the pockets of Russian consumers. Despite the fact that the actual disposable income of households, which has already been recognized by official statistics, continues to decline.

Our compatriots and ordinary people believe that it is the fuel and energy complex, and specifically the largest vertically integrated oil companies, that are the main beneficiaries of what is happening in the oil market. I mean the retail that ordinary people encounter. That the entire increase in prices that we observed in the spring of this year, we predictably expect in the spring of 2019, because the same excise taxes will be indexed, and Mr. Kozak, the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the fuel and energy complex, has already announced this.

Few people pay attention to the fact that the beneficiary is actually the government. The beneficiary is the federal budget. And it is there that we ship this multi-billion dollar cash for the constant increase in fuel prices. Can you explain who really benefits in this situation?

R.T. The share of oil companies, namely all departments, starting from geologists who look for oil, and ending with a specific cashier who sits at a gas station, this entire spectrum receives 2% of the price of gasoline.

Yu.P. 2% of what we see on the gas station display?

R.T. Yes. 71% receive the state budget in pure form. Everything else is direct production costs that cannot be allocated anywhere. This is the electricity that is required for oil production and for refining oil, and these are transportation costs. And this picture is getting worse every year.

What changes will we have with next year? Firstly, as we all know, the excise tax, which was lowered this year, will be restored. They will restore it to the previous level, and accordingly, the rise in gasoline prices will continue.

Secondly, VAT increases by 2%. This is a direct investment in the price of gasoline. And third is the tax maneuver. Part of the revenue that was from customs duties is now transferred to the mineral extraction tax, the price of oil rises adequately, and the price of gasoline and diesel fuel increases accordingly.

What kind of growth can there be if these processes are not smoothed out? The price of gasoline and diesel fuel will increase by an average of 10 rubles per liter. This is a scary thing.

Yu.P. Plus 7 to the current level. Not 7%, but 7 rubles.

R.T. Yes, this is a wild blow. The government, apparently, considered something like this and realized what kind of social stress it was...

Yu.P. That they are losing not only Khabarovsk and Vladimir...

R.T. That's what we're talking about. And it was decided in advance, proactively, to introduce a refundable excise tax, that is, to return part of the losses associated with the increase in the excise tax and the increase in the mineral extraction tax. How well this will all work, what the numbers and values will be, I don’t know yet, because the data has not been officially published. All that is said is that this increase in the returnable excise tax will be introduced either from October 1 or from November 1.

But this is timely, because the time lag of the reaction of retail prices to changes in wholesale prices is just three months. In three months it will somehow be mixed. How much they will be able to smooth this out, I cannot say for sure. According to my calculations, apparently, the increase will not be 7 rubles, but somewhere around 4 rubles.

Yu.P. Is this the so called damper they suggested?

R.T. Yes, this is the damper they want to bring. Do you see what high gas prices lead to? People have lost the opportunity to travel to neighboring regions. If you look at our regions, excluding Moscow, of course, Moscow - a special case, in our regions, car numbers are only regional, our own.

What else does this lead to? This leads to the fact that it has become unprofitable to transport food and various goods to small settlements. Small shops have such a poor assortment that corresponds to the social minimum. This is not the case in cities, because transportation over short distances is relatively inexpensive, and the car can be full. So everything pays off. But in the villages this is very strongly felt. Therefore, social tension accumulates. Therefore, the LDPR candidate won in the Khabarovsk Territory. And not only there.

Yu.P. That is, you draw a direct correlation between the results of these gubernatorial elections with what is happening in the fuel market?

R.T. This is one of the reasons, but certainly a very important one. We all know very well, both the government and we, the residents of our country and other countries where there are cars, how sensitive society is to fuel prices. We can now firmly say that our population’s purchasing power is such that the consumption of gasoline and diesel fuel has been reduced fourfold.

Why can I say this? Because in Canada, where the climate is the same and transportation distances are the same, the consumption of gasoline and diesel fuel is approximately the same in structure as ours, 4 times more per capita.

Yu.P. It turns out that the state crushed this demand and this purchasing power. Through your ever-increasing appetites.

R.T. Our state is structured in a unique way. There is a motivation for the officials who make up the state. According to this motivation, they receive salaries and bonuses for fulfilling the state budget, and not for improving social situation, not for the development of our economy. That's why they work for the state budget.

Yu.P. Do I understand correctly what you are saying about the compensation that will be received under the mineral extraction tax due to the increasing excise tax: is this framed as benefits for oil companies or is it something else? The Ministry of Finance has already stated that in the situation of VAT increase, increase retirement age, giving benefits to oil companies is, to put it mildly, incorrect.

R.T. Yes, I heard it too. The so-called returnable excise tax is such an exotic phenomenon that no one has ever heard of it. And me too. This exotic phenomenon of our economy is very difficult to classify. And call it benefits or reverse tax. You understand, this is a situation where the state pays taxes to its participants.

Yu.P. Does the state pay taxes?

R.T. Refundable excise tax means that the state pays excise tax to oil companies, compensating for those increases in oil prices that occur due to the fact that they increase the mineral extraction tax. This such a puzzling maneuver can be explained by only one thing - I think I will not be mistaken if I say that for more than 25 years we have had a black hole in our budget called Belarus. It receives oil at prices on the Russian domestic market. After that, it produces petroleum products and sells these petroleum products abroad, by the way, occupying 6th place in the world in the export of petroleum products.

It sells these petroleum products abroad, but does not pay customs duties to Russia and does not return them. And the customs duties that could come from this process are all used to maintain the Belarusian financial miracle, when the country, without sufficient grounds, nevertheless continues to exist normally.

That's why the tax maneuver was invented. It effectively makes it impossible to obtain these subsidies through customs duties. And this means that upon completion of the tax maneuver, Belarusian oil refineries will find themselves in the same position as Russian oil refineries. Accordingly, the Belarusian miracle may end after this.

Yu.P. I want to go back to Russia and understand. Refundable excise tax. The authors of this proposal are candidates for the Nobel Prize in economics.

R.T. To Shnobelevskaya.

Yu.P. Maybe to Shnobelevskaya. The situation is in our madhouse. We break it down point by point and piece by piece. At the same time, you said that the potential increase in retail prices could be 7 rubles from the current level. 71% of the retail price that we see at gas stations is a fiscal burden, these are taxes, excise taxes, and so on. 2% are, roughly speaking, accountants, cashiers and those involved in geological exploration.

R.T. All. These are drillers, and those involved in refining, absolutely all oil workers. 2% falls on everyone. Including Vagit Yusufovich Alekperov.

Yu.P. Please tell me, Rustam Ulanovich, what needs to be done to reduce the retail price of fuel in Russia?

R.T. Four steps. First: completely cancel the tax maneuver. No one will agree to this, because I repeat, we need to eliminate the black hole in our economy. And, apparently, the negotiations that took place between the presidents of Belarus and Russia included this problem. Therefore, this step will not be taken.

The next step that can be taken is the abolition of the excise tax. Or its sharp decline. But it's better to cancel. The third step that needs to be taken and which, it seems, is being done little by little, is the need to strengthen the national currency. It is necessary to strengthen the ruble so that the price difference between our neighbors and us is smaller.

Now, if we talk on average about European countries, the difference in price between gasoline in Russia and gasoline from neighbors is 2.5 times. Still, this is a bit much. This provokes the export of gasoline and diesel fuel from Russia.

Yu.P. This is an objective motivation specifically for the export of petroleum products.

R.T. Yes. But administratively, it is true, they are holding him back very strongly. And the last thing that could and should be done. Increase customs duties on the export of gasoline and diesel fuel. Now it is 10 times lower than it was in 2014. The fact is that our customs duty on the export of petroleum products is tied to the customs duty on the export of oil. And these are completely different things. Still, the domestic market for gasoline and diesel fuel needs to be protected. If we took at least three of the four steps that I listed, we could count on not just stabilization of gasoline prices, but also a reduction.

Yu.P. You have given at least four steps that can level out this problem. Again, I am deeply convinced that the so-called budget rule is a controversial issue behind tightly closed doors. So far, I see the position of the Ministry of Finance, and the government as a whole, which is doing everything to implement this budget rule. I understand the existence of the hole. But this was a political question. And it remains a political issue. In fact, he was drawn into internal Russian issues. So?

R.T. So.

Yu.P. We still need to share this. Cutlets here, other cutlets here, I don’t want to call the neighboring country flies. As for other options, they are absolutely feasible. Both from the point of view of duties and from the point of view of zeroing out the excise tax. It’s just that appetites need to be restrained despite the fact that the budget is in surplus.

R.T. You don't even have to restrain your appetite. We have a huge budget surplus due to the fact that the OPEC+ agreement is working, the budget receives significant additional revenue from high oil prices.

Yu.P. You see, they all, I mean the officials of the Ministry of Finance, they have this mantra - if tomorrow is a rainy day, and if the day after tomorrow is a rainy day, and if in two days it’s a rainy day. And here we have Kudrin’s little egg.

R.T. That’s what I say, they receive their salaries not for social measures and not for economic development. They receive it for fulfilling the budget rule, so they fulfill it. We need to change our motivation. Now they are going to pay them huge billions of additional dollars for motivation. We need to add motivation here. So that they receive this motivation for social measures, for economic development.

Yu.P. There can be many macroeconomic points, at least a dozen, but first I would put the standard of living of Russian households. If it grows, you should be motivated to receive bonuses, social packages and everything else. If it doesn’t grow, sorry, you’re not working well.

One of the sure signs of a crisis in a company is the inappropriate behavior of its top person.

This inadequacy is especially clearly manifested in secondary issues, where the first person, under the psychological pressure of an impending catastrophe, shows less vigilance and simply prudence. Meanwhile, the current public activity of the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, carried out through his vice-president, Mr. Leontyev, is very similar to the throwing of a cornered, mortally frightened animal.

In an attempt to turn Rosneft into a global monster, society is almost convinced that Sechin has his sights set on absorbing everything that is still moving in the Russian oil and gas market. Experts have long been debating whether Sechin will be the next to take over the last private large oil company, Lukoil?

Will he be able to digest Gazprom and Transneft, turning them into his own departments for the transportation of hydrocarbons? Experts are no longer wondering about the fact, but how quickly Sechin can take over the FAS, the tax service, the Ministry of Energy, where is the last minister left who can somehow resist the Great Privatizer?

In large-scale battles to absorb the remnants of the oil market in the country, IIS is launching more and more squadrons of its PR soldiers and private assistant professors, seeking to scientifically prove that Rosneft alone suffers for everyone and therefore deserves to reduce tariffs and fees for it and allocate everyone to it funds from the Welfare Fund.

Former once talented economists, under the yoke of Rosneft fees, are actively being repurposed as PR soldiers, despite scientific credentials and academic degrees. Our story is about Sechin’s recruits, who rose to the level of their owner’s stripes on their shoulder straps.

Rustam Tankaev. "Mister lied"

Rustam Tankaev - as he introduces himself - a member of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on energy strategy and development of the fuel and energy complex on January 13, 2017, in his column on Lenta.Ru, literally wrote the following: Transneft independently and without presenting any justification for a year from year establishes the size of the standard for its losses when transporting foreign oil.”

The definition of “alien” is a minor linguistic dirty trick. For Transneft, all the oil it pumps is “foreign”, because the company is not involved in oil production. Oil producers hand over raw materials to it, and the state company pumps it through pipes in accordance with the transportation plan approved by the Ministry of Energy. But this is a trifle, but the statement “Transneft independently and without presenting any justification year after year sets the size of the standard for its losses during transportation” is a lie. Allegedly, a member of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on Energy Strategy and Development of the Fuel and Energy Complex is well aware that the standards for losses of raw materials during transportation are set by the Ministry of Energy. Currently, this standard is 0.46% of the pumped volume.

People at the level of “member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry committee” lie either out of great need or for big money. What's in in this case more, we don’t know, maybe both are enough. The main thing is that from Rosneft, through the apparatus of its main mouthpiece Mikhail Leontyev, Rustam Tankaev received a well-motivated offer to lie, which he could not refuse.

No oil is lost in the pipes. The expert on the fuel and energy complex, which Mr. “lying” calls himself, should be aware of this. Therefore, for example, in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) there is no problem of losses - as much as they supplied at the entrance, they received the same amount at the exit. In CPC, where there are only a few shareholders and only a few distributors of oil, the owners of which in the pipeline they, unlike Transneft, are, they managed to coordinate the process of production, receiving raw materials into the pipeline and filling tankers in such a way that such questions do not arise .

Losses occur when oil is transferred from the pipe to intermediate tanks and back. This happens in an oil pipeline system when oil refineries cannot immediately accept the incoming volume of oil and have to temporarily hold it in accordance. tanks. Or during the compounding process, when it is necessary to bring the accepted volume of oil to the required quality by mixing fuel with different sulfur qualities from different suppliers. Or when filling tankers.

There is already a certain percentage of shrinkage. In ports all over the world, the transshipment of oil from and to a tanker is accompanied by losses, small losses, but losses. For example, according to the current standards in the Russian Federation, oil losses when pumping from tankers to tanks in ports should not exceed 0.2%.

Every year, the oil pipeline monopoly optimizes the transportation system, reducing actual losses to 0.14% with a standard of 0.46%. At the same time, this figure also includes real losses from criminal tappings into main oil pipelines, and this is significant damage, despite the fact that losses due to tappings are ignored by the Ministry of Energy standards.

Mr. “lying” Tankaev is lying when he writes: “Rosneft” is not satisfied with this practice [the amount of losses] from year to year, which causes a conflict when concluding contracts with Transneft.” So far, Rosneft and Transneft have not had any “conflicts” on this matter, since a) the loss standard is approved by the Ministry of Energy, b) money from the sale of “surplus” on the stock exchange is directed under the control of the Board of Directors only for charitable purposes (and Sechin knows this well as a former deputy prime minister). And if the loss standards from the Ministry of Energy do not suit Sechin, then he must contact the Ministry of Energy. Why it suddenly occurred to Sechin right now to stage a show with the courts regarding loss standards, one can only guess what, in fact, we are doing. Although it has long been clear to everyone that he really doesn’t like the independence of Transneft and its leadership. How can this be tolerated!

All information about the technology for calculating losses is well known to Rustam Tankaev, otherwise he is no expert, and in this case, those interested can ask how much Igor Sechin paid him for lying. Apparently quite a lot, because the “member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry” was seriously excited. Tankaev writes: “In Soviet practice, by the way, there was a rule when these so-called balances were returned to the deliverers, which, in fact, is what Rosneft is trying to achieve, proposing for discussion a certain calculation formula for such balances returned to the Transneft client, and not appropriated it on a completely incomprehensible legal basis, surprisingly reminiscent of theft.” Beautiful word− “theft.”

Tankaev is well aware that it is physically impossible to “return” the remaining oil to the distributors. Companies deliver oil of different qualities into the oil pipeline system, with high sulfur content and low-sulfur content, viscous and fluid, etc. Transneft mixes all incoming oil, achieving the desired quality of raw materials at the outlet to consumers. It is impossible to “return” to Rosneft the original oil that Igor Sechin delivered, there is simply no such thing in the system.

If Sechin’s goal was to reduce transportation costs, he would have raised the issue with the Ministry of Energy about reducing the standard for losses in the Transneft system, especially since this is completely realistic. Such a requirement would be reasonable and understandable. Since the great privatizer does not do this, it means that his goal is not to reduce losses. Sechin uses the informational occasion of “losses in the Transneft system” to attack its leadership and denigrate the company. And the faithful “banderlog” Tankaev is right there, always at your feet...

But how significant are losses of 0.14% of pumped raw materials for Rosneft? Emotions aside, if the figure of 0.14% is so significant for the company that its head starts a dirty public squabble, it is urgent to get rid of its shares.

You should run to sell very quickly, if only because of this passage from the “lying” Tankaev: Rosneft in recent years has opened the Chinese market for the export of Russian oil, squeezing out all traditional suppliers there, and already this year announced additional supplies 56 million tons in the next seven years. This is a colossal success for the country... Rosneft works by extracting oil, refining it and conquering new markets, and it is the infrastructure monopoly Transneft that intends to “actively use” this oil. This is Transneft, excuse me, in chocolate, and in someone else’s.”

The problem is not so much that it is nonsense. The problem is the degree of absurdity that was transmitted along the chain from Igor Sechin through a number of his employees to the brain convolutions of the “member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry”. For people who are infinitely far from oil problems, we inform you: the pipeline system " Eastern Siberia− Pacific Ocean (ESPO) was built by Transneft in accordance with the decision of the government and the President of the Russian Federation to export oil to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2012, during a large press conference, congratulated “the builders, engineers, everyone involved in this huge construction project” on the completion of the second stage of the oil pipeline and compared this project with the construction of the BAM. The President congratulated the builders - the employees of Transneft - first of all. And Igor Sechin, taking advantage of his position, soon pushed other oil producers away from the profitable route (from $10 to $40 plus for each ton, depending on the price of oil compared to exports to Europe), redistributing pumping volumes in favor of Rosneft. The state-owned pipeline company does not care whose oil it pumps at the tariffs approved by the FAS. And the company cannot, in principle, “use” this oil and “be in the dark,” just as a truck driver cannot “use” the cargo in the back. But oil workers care where to pump and at what tariffs.

So in the case of ESPO, it is Igor Sechin and his Rosneft who are “in chocolate”, receiving additional profit due to ESPO tariffs subsidized by all other oil companies. Based on the totality of his merits, Tankaev can already dream of corporal stripes.

"Pocket PR man" Mukhin

Imagine the situation: five farms send tomatoes to a supermarket on one truck. Tomatoes of different quality, boxes are marked. Sold at a good price in the supermarket best tomatoes, and those that were worse were offered to customers at a discount, processed or thrown away. As a result, the supermarket owner will negotiate with tomato suppliers how much to pay whom. But not with a truck driver, who is only responsible for how quickly the tomatoes are delivered to the store. And another pseudo-expert of Igor Sechin, CEO Center for Political Information Alexey Mukhin accuses the truck driver, in this case Transneft, of the lack of a system of different payments for different tomatoes.

“Pocket PR man” Sechin Mukhin rightly writes: “When delivering oil to the system, American companies indicate its fractional composition in documents. Based on it, the cost of the batch is calculated, and at the output everyone receives a batch of oil equivalent in cost, and not in volume, to the delivered batch of oil,” and then he boldly lies: “A similar system for the conditions of our country was developed, but instead of implementation, Transneft demanded improvements to BKN by concluding an agreement with one of the Bashkir institutes, and he “buried the project in five years.”

The fantastic “Bashkir institute” invented by Mukhin at the instigation of Rosneft press secretary Odniker, even if it existed, could not “bury the project” of the Oil Quality Bank (BKN), simply because this is not the level of an institute, even a Bashkir one. Such issues are resolved at the level of the Ministry of Energy. Transneft itself has been calculating such payments for many years using the BKN method, similar to the American one, in the hope that the BKN will work. The arguments of the representative of the Ministry of Energy can be found in the transcript of the fourth meeting of the Expert Group of JSC AK Transneft, “The problem of oil quality: features of transit, production, refining,” held on April 7, 2013.

This is what Alexander Bogatyrev, head of the oil and petroleum products transportation department of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, said verbatim at the Expert Group: “The oil quality bank, as a financial instrument for making compensation payments for deterioration quality characteristics oil as a result of their mixing during transportation through the oil pipeline system of the Transneft company gives rise to a conflict of interests of oil companies with production assets of different natural characteristics. Accordingly, the oil quality bank does not solve quality problems...

One cannot ignore the fact that as a result of the introduction of a quality bank, Russian companies will make compensation payments to foreign companies that deliver oil of better quality than theirs, but which use the trunk pipeline system of Transneft OJSC for transit. As a result, the tax base of Russian oil companies and payers of compensation payments will be reduced, which will inevitably lead to a decrease in the revenue side of the federal budget.”

In essence, Bogatyrev defended the interests of Tatneft, Bashneft, and even Rosneft itself - the main suppliers of high-sulfur oil to the Transneft pipeline system. In 2015, these companies buried the project to create a new high-sulfur marker grade of Russian oil - Urals Heavy, the first step towards the creation of BKN. As a result, Poland began to buy Arab oil - the amount of sulfur is the same, but the price is lower.

In Bogatyrev’s words, it is reasonable that Russia will have to pay more for high-quality Azerbaijani and Kazakh oil, with which Transneft is now diluting the heavy and sulfurous oil of Russian companies. But the alternative is also bleak - loss of markets and reduction in the price of the Urals export grade. But even this is not the main thing. The essence of the problem is that the oil companies themselves (suppliers of tomatoes) must agree on the creation of BKN, and not the truck driver (Transneft), which has nothing to do with what this or that supplier dumps into a common pipe. This is exactly what happens in the above-mentioned America. However, this young fighter apparently already sees receiving the rank of sergeant in Sechin’s army in a dream.

Private academician Feigin against Transneft and Gazprom

Let's continue the tour of the cabinet of curiosities of victims of Igor Ivanovich's sick fantasies.

In a review by the Institute of Energy and Finance (IEF) “Comparative analysis of Transneft PJSC with international analogues,” Vladimir Feigin, an adviser on the salary of the head of Rosneft and part-time president of the IEF, tried, on the instructions and with the money of his patron, to refute the recent report of an international consulting company KPMG on the high efficiency of Transneft compared to comparable foreign companies.

It turned out poorly. Moskovskaya Pravda found an outright lie in the review. For example, in one place in the report it is stated that Transneft was able to build only 900 km of pipelines in 2011-2015. Another thing is that the length of the linear part of oil pipelines over these years has decreased from 53.6 thousand km to 52.3 thousand km. In reality, during this period, 10 thousand km of the linear part of the main oil pipelines were built (2011 - Purpe-Samotlor - 500 km, 2012 - ESPO-2 - 2050 km and BTS-2 - 1000 km, 2015 - Polar region - Purpe - 500 km, replacement of a pipe that has served its technical life - 6000 km). This data can be easily found on the Transneft website or from a search query in Yandex.

Using for some indicators a comparison with similar foreign companies in terms of the ruble exchange rate at purchasing power parity (PPP), and in other cases a nominal exchange rate, the IEF accuses the management of Transneft of “destroying the value of the company”, keeping silent about the fact that for 2013-2016 gg. the company's share price increased 5 times.

If Transneft’s indicators are 10 percent better than others, for example, transportation intensity, the report speaks of “comparability” of the data with global companies; if it is lower by even 1-2 percent, it is concluded that Transneft’s affairs “ much worse."

At the end of the review, Vladimir Feigin wisely writes “...IEF is not responsible for its [the information presented in the review] reliability and completeness” (!). The review was sent to all specialized publications, but none of them published either the review itself or articles about it, since decent people “bear responsibility” for their words.

Sechin paid Feigin 50 million rubles for this stuffing.

By the way, Rosneft PR experts use the same moves in all conflicts. When Sechin launched another attack on Gazprom's monopoly last spring, Rustam Tankaev accused Gazprom's management of inefficiency and falling financial performance. Great amount The management of Gazprom has made mistakes over the past ten years, writes Tankaev, while Rosneft has “showed an increase in business efficiency.” “Increasing efficiency” is in Rosneft’s reports. Sechin’s state-owned company, after purchasing the assets of Yukos ($33.5 billion), TNK-BP ($55 billion), Bashneft ($5 billion), and all sorts of other things, is now worth about $54 billion. That is, globally, the company’s capitalization as of December 1, 2016 was doubled lower than the value of all assets acquired by it over 12 years. Locally - profits and profitability have fallen 4 times over the last year (! - see table below). Oil production decreased in 2013-2016 by 3 million tons (from 192 to 189 million tons) - excluding Bashneft production.

And this despite the fact that quite recently the head of Rosneft cheerfully reported from the screen about achieving a record level of production. And out of 11 members of the Rosneft Management Board, five left during the year. This is an indicator of the real state of affairs in the company.

If we talk about rank, then these are, of course, the shoulder straps of an ensign. For combining the work of an adviser to the head of Rosneft and maintaining his own private shop as a contractor for Rosneft.

How private assistant professor Mikheev framed Forbes

On Thursday, November 17, Forbes magazine published an article by MGIMO associate professor Alexey Mikheev, “You can’t pay to invest: why state-owned companies don’t fulfill the dividend plan,” in which he revealed such amazing gems that calling him simply an associate professor is humiliating. Much better than “privat-docent”. “Privat” comes from the word “privatization”. This keyword, which lies at the heart of the public (and not so public) activities that Igor Sechin has been conducting over the past couple of years.

This “private assistant professor” discusses the investment policy of Transneft and writes verbatim the following: “...we need not only a behind-the-scenes, but also a public discussion both around the investment policies of companies and around the dividend... A companion to the regulatory authorities and management of state-owned companies... should be market investors, and the expert community (for example, through Open Government), and concerned citizens in general.”

That is, all financial documents of state-owned companies and plans for their development must be brought up for open discussion by “interested citizens in general.” The article was published on the eve of the next court hearing on the claim of Ilya Shcherbovich, at which the issue of issuing a truckload of Transneft documents at the request of the latter was considered. After reading the article, the judges, in the opinion of Sechin’s ideologists, should have been imbued with the idea that if it is necessary to invite everyone to discuss the details of the finances of state-owned companies, then these documents must certainly be issued to minority shareholders.

If Mr. Mikheev had said something like this in the West, saying that it was high time to put investment plans and dividend policies of state-owned companies out for public discussion, he would have been politely sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment, having previously been relieved of his positions. In Russia, this figure is still an associate professor, an expert at the Federal Property Management Agency and a member of various Boards of Directors of companies with state participation.

Here’s another gem from the “privat-docent”: Transneft, according to statements by the company itself, expects to spend in 2015-2020. there are twice as many funds for repairing its pipeline network as in 2010-2014, despite the fact that neither the press nor the regulatory authorities seem to know anything about the deterioration of oil pipelines in Russia.” An excellent argument: since data on the deterioration of oil pipelines was not published in Cosmopolitan magazines and, for example, in Health, then there is no need to repair them! How can you write this without being locked in a madhouse!? And how much did Mikhail Odnaker pay Forbes (according to the government procurement website, Rosneft allocates 4 billion rubles for PR activities per year) that the magazine risked its reputation by publishing this nonsense? Taking into account the development of a foreign resource, Mikheev can lay claim to the shoulder straps of ml. Lieutenant - they give stars for knowledge of languages.

Liquidator from Likino-Dulevo

The town of Likino-Dulevo grew up around the Likino bus plant. An ordinary factory town five kilometers across the railway line from Orekhovo-Zuevo. It has never been the center of legal thought, but it was here that Rosneft PR people found a commentator on the lawsuit between Rosneft and Transneft regarding the oil transportation agreement for 2017. The parties did not agree on the issue of accounting for technological losses of oil during transportation and their compensation.

Transneft announced the recusal of Judge T. Lamonova, who, at the request of Rosneft, ordered Transneft to continue transporting oil on the terms of the unconcluded agreement for 2017, which were not agreed upon by the parties. The judge, therefore, even before considering the claim on the merits of the case, decided the issue in favor of PJSC NK Rosneft, Transneft believes. According to the law and legal practice, the judge was obliged to extend the current agreement for 2016 for 2017, that is, leave everything as it was.

A decision in favor of one party when imposing interim measures is such a blatant savagery in the practice of arbitration courts that none of the thousands of Moscow lawyers agreed to the proposal of the Rosneft PR service to call the challenge of a judge “the last argument to which one of the parties resorts in the event that she has no arguments on the merits of the case.” I agreed to subscribe to this yapping individual entrepreneur“in the field of law” from Likino-Dulevo Anton Turcanu. For added significance, he was introduced as a “lawyer”, which he is not officially, and as a “specialist in corporate law”, although this “specialist” deals exclusively with liquidation services legal entities for small firms at dumping prices.

The liquidator has nothing to catch except the sergeant's shoulder straps... Maybe that's why he doesn't try very hard.

Nikita Krichevsky asked to kill himself

Let's continue our sad tour of the museum of Igor Sechin's PR people with the figure of Nikita Krichevsky, representing the Institute of National Strategy.

AiF dated September 26, 2016 published a retelling of an interview with the chief researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. economic sciences, Professor Nikita Krichevsky, who emotionally stated: “For the life of me, it is not clear how corporate blackmail or greenmailing applies to Rosneftegaz.”

For those who are not in the know, Rosneftegaz is a state-owned company through which the government owns shares in Rosneft and partly in Gazprom. It is managed by Gennady Bukaev, who is also a member of the board of Rosneft; before that, he worked as an adviser to the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. Rosneftegaz has never had and never has anything to do with pumping oil.

And this gas pipeline company (has not yet produced a single ton of oil and gas) through its subsidiary bought five preferred shares of Transneft (0.0003% of all traded on the market) and demanded to provide information on transactions for 2013-2016 , including data on put and call options, documents on foreign exchange management policy and interest rate risks, documents with a list of all financial assets of Transneft for 2014-2016, breakdown of amounts Money during this time and internal documents establishing mechanisms for managing financial assets in 2013-2016.

Transneft called this demand “corporate blackmail,” although more precisely the actions of Bukaev and those behind him should be called arbitrariness on the verge of sabotage.

Rosneftegaz and Transneft have one owner, the state. If one state-owned company needs information about the activities of another state-owned company, it should not buy its shares and threaten to sue, but contact the government through the authority. If one state-owned company starts a war against another state-owned company, this is sabotage of its direct responsibilities and sabotage of the functioning of the state mechanism, and nothing else.

But for money from Rosneft you won’t be able to sing too much. Krichevsky and “sings”: “In 2013-14, Transneft entered into several option agreements to hedge risks of the strengthening of the ruble. The total amount of the transaction was $9 billion. As a result, Transneft lost neither more nor less on these transactions - 75 billion rubles! “I don’t quite understand why this is talked about somehow in passing, and this did not become the subject of discussion, for example, at a government meeting or at economic meetings of the Kremlin.”

The subject for discussion at the government meeting was not the losses of Transneft and other companies, but the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development for the ruble exchange rate, which companies relied on when hedging currency risks [hedging, otherwise, insurance, the risk of a sharp change in the exchange rate national currency when servicing foreign currency loans - standard practice for all companies, both Russian and foreign - ed.].

In those years, the ruble exchange rate was about 33 rubles per dollar, and Mr. Ulyukaev gave a forecast of an exchange rate of no more than 50 rubles per dollar. And the rate soared to almost 80 rubles per dollar. Everyone suffered losses, losses largest companies cited by Vedomosti in its issue of July 15, 2015. Here is this table with the addition of absolute losses and a comparison of losses with EBITDA. It is clear that Transneft is not a leader in terms of either the absolute amount of losses or the relative amount.

Nikita Krichevsky knows this very well, but he writes only about Transneft, with which his financial patron is at war. He writes with a sea of emotions, throwing himself under a PR locomotive, practically committing seppuku in a jump like an economist.

True, seppuku for money is not samurai style. This is some kind of hara-kiri - a simple ripping open of the stomach for commoners.

But despite such self-sacrifice, there will be no title here. Titles are not given posthumously.

Privat-docents against Lukoil

Exactly the same approach by private associate professors of Rosneft was used in the attack on Lukoil. Alekperov’s company especially suffered in the story of the privatization of Bashneft. PR soldiers Tankaev and Krichevsky got involved when suspicions arose that Bashneft might go to Lukoil. “If, guided by the statements of representatives of the financial and economic bloc, we completely exclude state-controlled companies from the list of possible candidates for the purchase of Bashneft? In fact, such a decision will mean a “green light” for Lukoil,” said Rustam Tankaev.

Nikita Krichevsky echoes him: “Who is the “proper buyer” then? Let's take the liberty of guessing - LUKoil. And the haste of some members of the Cabinet of Ministers can be explained simply: after the September elections to the State Duma, they may be dismissed. And, apparently, without the right to receive “dividends” from the raw material private sector. Let us leave to the investigators the theme of money-grubbing, which accompanies the activities of liberals in recent decades.”

Former economist Krichevsky claims that in his program on RSN he held a vote among radio listeners: 94% were in favor of the company remaining under state control. But for some reason this “state” should be called not “Ministry of Energy”, not Rosimushchestvo, but “Rosneft”. Apparently, it is “more state-owned” than the Ministry of Energy.

When Lukoil stated that the cost of privatizing Bashneft was too high for it, Nikita Krichevsky accused Lukoil top managers of only caring about shareholder income, while Rosneft prioritizes “state interests” first of all. " What is called “licked to the tonsils.”

This is where the year 1937 is just beginning in the private professor’s head. PR-Krichevsky enters into an inquisitorial rage and does not disdain Beria’s denunciation techniques. Lukoil's subsidiary, LUKOIL Overseas, which manages the group's foreign assets, announced plans in the spring of 2015 to create offices in Dubai and Houston. “What is behind Lukoil’s intention to transfer part of its management functions to a country now hostile to Russia?” Nikita Krichevsky asks menacingly.

We especially note such a gem of a private professor. Having exhausted the stock of accusations against his competitor in the article, Nikita burst out with a revelation: Why is Lukoil’s patron truly a people’s football club“Spartak” has been living without victories for 12 years?! “Is it because everyone knows about the long-standing passion of the company’s vice-president Leonid Fedun for Dynamo Kyiv?” this fan of Russian football is indignant. A man works with a light.

It’s breathtaking to fantasize about the amounts spent by the head of Rosneft on the PR campaigns described above.

What is this all for? The only more or less suitable hypothesis, currently actively discussed in the media, is Igor Sechin’s desire to take over Transneft in order to create Neftyanaya Gazprom. Here are the results of Rosneft’s work for 9 months of 2016 from its report.

All profitability percentages are much lower than the company's borrowing costs. The report also shows the amount of long-term borrowed funds - 3,807 billion rubles. This is more than the company’s revenue - 3503 billion rubles. Given the current profitability, Rosneft will never be able to get out of the debt abyss. Hence, probably, the deviant behavior of Igor Sechin and his senior PR sergeant major Mikhail Odnaker (in the world of Leontyev).

P.S. Russian media are afraid to touch the all-powerful top manager, whose form style- numerous lawsuits over even relatively neutral publications. But at least once, journalists took revenge on Igor Ivanovich. Kommersant, RBC, Forbes, Novaya Gazeta devoted huge materials to the story of the attempt of the Sechin shell company Zaeliko-Nedvizhimost to receive a VAT refund of 1.5 billion rubles from the tax authorities in 2015 for the purchase of a building in the center of Moscow. address Arbatskaya Square, 1 for the Independent Oil Company (NOC) of Eduard Khudainatov. Then the tax authorities found out that the building both belonged to Rosneft and remained the property of the company, and the money transferred through Western banks and Cypriot offshore companies to Zaeliko-Real Estate for the purchase returned to Rosneft.

According to decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, the budget has the right not to return VAT on sham transactions, which is what it did tax office. Then Igor Sechin had to donate 1.5 billion so that the tax service would refuse to approve the affiliation of Rosneft and NOC. And although it is a rare case that the Federal Tax Service “leaked” openly in front of the director of an oil company, it is an even more rare case that Sechin’s PR soldiers could not come up with anything to justify their patron.

One of the sure signs of a crisis in a company is the inappropriate behavior of its top person.

Rustam Tankaev. "Mister lied"

People at the level of “member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry committee” lie either out of great need or for big money. What is more in this case is unknown, perhaps both are enough. The main thing is that from Rosneft, through the apparatus of its main mouthpiece Mikhail Leontyev, Rustam Tankaev received a well-motivated offer to lie, which he could not refuse.

The problem is not so much that it is nonsense. The problem is the degree of absurdity that was transmitted along the chain from Igor Sechin through a number of his employees to the brain convolutions of the “member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry”. For people who are infinitely far from oil problems, we inform you: the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline system was built by Transneft in accordance with the decision of the government and the President of the Russian Federation to export oil to the Asia-Pacific countries.

"Pocket PR man" Mukhin

Imagine the situation: five farms send tomatoes to a supermarket on one truck. Tomatoes of different quality, boxes are marked. The supermarket sold the best tomatoes at a good price, while the poorer ones were offered to customers at a discount, processed or thrown away. As a result, the supermarket owner will negotiate with tomato suppliers how much to pay whom. But not with a truck driver, who is only responsible for how quickly the tomatoes are delivered to the store. And another pseudo-expert of Igor Sechin, General Director of the Center for Political Information, Alexey Mukhin, accuses the truck driver, in this case, Transneft, of the absence of a system of different payments for different tomatoes.

This is what Alexander Bogatyrev, head of the oil and petroleum products transportation department of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, said verbatim at the Expert Group: “The oil quality bank, as a financial instrument for making compensation payments for the deterioration of the quality characteristics of oil as a result of their mixing during transportation through the oil pipeline system of the Transneft company.” creates a conflict of interests for oil companies with production assets of different natural characteristics. Accordingly, the oil quality bank does not solve quality problems...

Private academician Feigin against Transneft and Gazprom

Let's continue the tour of the cabinet of curiosities of victims of Igor Ivanovich's sick fantasies.

Sechin paid Feigin 50 million rubles for this stuffing.

By the way, Rosneft PR experts use the same moves in all conflicts. When Sechin launched another attack on Gazprom's monopoly last spring, Rustam Tankaev accused Gazprom's management of inefficiency and falling financial performance. The management of Gazprom has made a huge number of mistakes over the past ten years, writes Tankaev, while Rosneft “showed an increase in business efficiency.” “Increasing efficiency” is in Rosneft’s reports. Sechin’s state-owned company, after purchasing the assets of Yukos ($33.5 billion), TNK-BP ($55 billion), Bashneft ($5 billion), and all sorts of other things, is now worth about $54 billion. That is, globally, the company’s capitalization as of December 1, 2016 was doubled lower than the value of all assets acquired by it over 12 years. Locally - profits and profitability have fallen 4 times over the last year (! - see table below). Oil production decreased in 2013-2016 by 3 million tons (from 192 to 189 million tons) - excluding Bashneft production.

How private assistant professor Mikheev framed Forbes

On Thursday, November 17, Forbes magazine published an article by MGIMO associate professor Alexey Mikheev, “You can’t pay to invest: why state-owned companies don’t fulfill the dividend plan,” in which he revealed such amazing gems that calling him simply an associate professor is humiliating. Much better than “privat-docent”. “Privat” comes from the word “privatization”. This is the key word that underlies the public (and not so public) activities that Igor Sechin has been conducting over the past couple of years.

Liquidator from Likino-Dulevo

A decision in favor of one party when imposing interim measures is such a blatant savagery in the practice of arbitration courts that none of the thousands of Moscow lawyers agreed to the proposal of the Rosneft PR service to call the challenge of a judge “the last argument to which one of the parties resorts in the event that she has no arguments on the merits of the case.” An individual entrepreneur “in the field of law” from Likino-Dulevo, Anton Turcanu, agreed to subscribe to this yelp. To make it even more important, he was introduced as a “lawyer,” which he is not officially, and as a “specialist in the field of corporate law,” although this “specialist” deals exclusively with services for the liquidation of legal entities for small firms at dumping prices.

The liquidator has nothing to catch except the sergeant's shoulder straps... Maybe that's why he doesn't try very hard.

Nikita Krichevsky asked to kill himself

Let's continue our sad tour of the museum of Igor Sechin's PR people with the figure of Nikita Krichevsky, representing the Institute of National Strategy.

AiF on September 26, 2016 published a retelling of an interview with the chief researcher of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Economics, Professor Nikita Krichevsky, who emotionally stated: “For the life of me, it is not clear how corporate blackmail or greenmailing relates to Rosneftegaz.” .

And this gas pipeline company (has not yet produced a single ton of oil and gas) through its subsidiary bought five preferred shares of Transneft (0.0003% of all traded on the market) and demanded to provide information on transactions for 2013-2016 , including data on put and call options, documents on the policy for managing currency and interest rate risks, documents with a list of all financial assets of Transneft for 2014-2016, transcripts of the amounts of funds during this time and internal documents establishing mechanisms for managing financial assets in 2013-2016.

Transneft called this demand “corporate blackmail,” although more precisely the actions of Bukaev and those behind him should be called arbitrariness on the verge of sabotage.

The subject for discussion at the government meeting was not the losses of Transneft and other companies, but the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development for the ruble exchange rate, which companies were guided by when hedging currency risks [hedging, otherwise, insurance, the risk of a sharp change in the exchange rate of the national currency when servicing foreign currency loans − standard practice of all companies, both Russian and foreign - ed.].

In those years, the ruble exchange rate was about 33 rubles per dollar, and Mr. Ulyukaev gave a forecast of an exchange rate of no more than 50 rubles per dollar. And the rate soared to almost 80 rubles per dollar. Everyone suffered losses, the losses of the largest companies were reported by Vedomosti in its issue of July 15, 2015. Here is this table with the addition of absolute losses and a comparison of losses with EBITDA. It is clear that Transneft is not a leader in terms of either the absolute amount of losses or the relative amount.

True, seppuku for money is not samurai style. This is some kind of hara-kiri - a simple ripping open of the stomach for commoners.

But despite such self-sacrifice, there will be no title here. Titles are not given posthumously.

Privat-docents against Lukoil

We especially note such a gem of a private professor. Having exhausted the stock of accusations against his competitor in the article, Nikita burst out with a revelation: Why is the truly popular football club Spartak, sponsored by Lukoil, living for 12 years without victories?! “Is it because everyone knows about the long-standing passion of the company’s vice-president Leonid Fedun for Dynamo Kyiv?” this fan of Russian football is indignant. A man works with a light.

It’s breathtaking to fantasize about the amounts spent by the head of Rosneft on the PR campaigns described above.

P.S. Russian media are afraid to touch the all-powerful top manager, whose signature style is numerous lawsuits over even relatively neutral publications. But at least once, journalists took revenge on Igor Ivanovich. Kommersant, RBC, Forbes, Novaya Gazeta devoted huge materials to the story of the attempt of the Sechin shell company Zaeliko-Nedvizhimost to receive a VAT refund of 1.5 billion rubles from the tax authorities in 2015 for the purchase of a building in the center of Moscow. address Arbatskaya Square, 1 for the Independent Oil Company (NOC) of Eduard Khudainatov. Then the tax authorities found out that the building both belonged to Rosneft and remained the property of the company, and the money transferred through Western banks and Cypriot offshore companies to Zaeliko-Real Estate for the purchase returned to Rosneft.

According to the decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, the budget has the right not to return VAT on sham transactions, which is what the tax inspectorate did. Then Igor Sechin had to donate 1.5 billion so that the tax service would refuse to approve the affiliation of Rosneft and NOC. And although it is a rare case that the Federal Tax Service “leaked” openly in front of the director of an oil company, it is an even more rare case that Sechin’s PR soldiers could not come up with anything to justify their patron.

Paradoxical but true. The opera Marriage, begun by Modest Mussorgsky in 1868 and completed by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov in 1931, has never been staged with an orchestra. The premiere was prepared by students of the musical theater department of RUTI-GITIS (workshop of Professor Dmitry Bertman) and the Chamber Youth Orchestra of the State Musical-Pedagogical Institute named after. M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov under the guidance of Professor Valery Vorona.

The event was timed to coincide with the 175th anniversary of Modest Mussorgsky. But the point is not in the set of numbers, but in the fact that this unique score is from the “avant-garde” category of the 19th century, created by Mussorgsky as a daring experiment in declamatory, recitative opera and completed by Ippolitov-Ivanov in the next century, when this experiment had already become an artifact of Russian classical opera , suddenly it was only in the current 21st century that she found herself in demand for the stage.

But before this historical event for musical chronicles took place, enthusiasts of two Moscow universities had to make efforts to find the Mussorgsky-Ippolitov-Ivanov score itself.

Ippolitov-Ivanov's orchestral version has not appeared anywhere since its only performance in 1931 on radio. The composer, as is known, not only orchestrated the clavier of the action written by Mussorgsky (others did this, including Maurice Ravel, Alexander Gauk, Nikolai Tcherepnin), but also composed the 2nd act (three scenes in the house of Agafya Tikhonovna). The forgotten score had to be searched in both Russian and European funds. As a result, a copy of “Marriage” from the Museum of Musical Culture named after. M.I. Glinka.

The world premiere of "Marriage" was shown on stage Theater hall House of Music. The performance was prepared by Dmitry Bertman's Workshop - director Sergei Terekhov. At the console of the Ippolitovka orchestra is a young conductor Sergei Mikheev. Gogol's "Marriage" is a tragic farce, where the suitors' matchmaking with the merchant maiden Agafya Tikhonovna ends with the absurd trick of the groom jumping out of the window. In the performance, to Gogol's grotesque, cheerful and carefree vaudeville energy, a gambling and charming spirit of student "prank" were added.

In the rapid whirlpool of action in the pavilion, stylizing the interior of Gogol's times - striped wallpaper, a sofa, a girl's chest of goods, a samovar (artist Mara Uvarova), comic characters popped up: the rouged, idle Agafya Tikhonovna with curlers and a giant gnawed apple (Anastasia Kovaleva), poisoned by a Russian Oblomovism, the groom Podkolesin (Andrei Opolsky), eager for the sofa, his resourceful, roguish friend Kochkarev (Ivan Volkov), the lively, noisy matchmaker Fekla Ivanovna (Yulia Gornostaeva), absurd suitors - the dull Yarnnitsa (Evgeniy Ivanov), the haberdashery Anuchkin, crumpling with a bouquet of lilies of the valley (Dmitry Bakhtalin), shabby Zhevakin (Egor Vasilenko), preoccupied with the ladies' attention. The background for the comedy of characters was created by the servants - Dunyasha (Tatyana Makarycheva), fussing around with a doormat, phlegmatic, inhibited Stepan (Timofey Redkozubov), piercing with a dark look the bride's aunt (Maria Vorozheikina) from under her brows. Playing characters with such precision and dashing is already a class of skill, but the young singers also had to fit their characters into the most complex rhythmic structure of the opera.

As the rector of Ippolitovka Valery Vorona noted, “Marriage” is a stressful score for everyone, it is a “minefield” where every inaccuracy is fatal. Pauses, broken recitatives in Mussorgsky's action, stylizations of themes from Mussorgsky's operas and Ippolitov-Ivanov's rapid Rossini brio. And all this multi-layered musical and theatrical texture was artistically embodied by the students of GITIS and Ippolitovka, and most importantly, they opened for the theater the opera of Gogol, Mussorgsky and Ippolitov-Ivanov, which was previously known only from the clavier.

direct speech

Karina Melik-Pashaeva, rector of RUTI-GITIS:

For us, such projects are very important, because our faculties - musical theater and scenography and the Ippolitovka youth orchestra - are united here. We have been collaborating together since last year and have already staged Educational theater GITIS "The Stone Guest" by Alexander Dargomyzhsky. This time we turned to "Marriage". This is a special score that Mussorgsky wrote at the age of 29, even before “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina”. He was looking for a new musical language created by human speech. And the score of “Marriage,” written to Gogol’s original text, turned out to be a unique experience in Russian music. We are glad that we were able to present this opera to a wider audience.

The opera "Marriage" is a connection dramatic music in prose. The first act was composed by M. Mussorgsky in 1868 based on the text of the comedy of the same name by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol with minor changes. The remaining three acts were written by M. Ippolitov-Ivanov. When writing music for “Marriage,” Mussorgsky set himself experimental goals.

The musician’s main task when writing the opera was to comprehend Gogol’s presentation of the comedy, translating the author’s text to music with maximum accuracy. Mussorgsky called the opera “a study for a chamber test.” The composer did not try to add romance to Gogol's characters - insignificant, petty in their actions, he made them exactly the same as the characters in the play, trying to convey not only their feelings, but even the intonation of speech.

This “laboratory task” subsequently revealed music to Mussorgsky from an unusual side - he found many different and subtle details in it and learned, thanks to this experience, to consolidate speech intonations in the melody, and with their help - the feelings and characters of the characters. The opera “Marriage” was first performed at one of the meetings of the “Mighty Handful”.

The score of the opera was published in 1908 under the editorship of N. Rimsky-Korsakov, and in the same 1908, a concert performance of “Marriage” took place in Moscow, accompanied by a piano, at a musical matinee of the Circle of Russian Music Lovers. In 1930, M. Ippolitov-Ivanov continued the work he had begun on the opera, adding an orchestra to the score and creating his own libretto to music. This combined edition was first heard in 1931 on Moscow Radio.

According to the plot, the official Podkolesin is going to get married. He just can’t decide to get married, but he puts off the matchmaking. Podkolesin is persuaded to marry by his friend Kochkarev, a cheeky type of a troublesome character. Finally, he persuades the bachelor to go to his bride.

In addition to Podkolesin, several other suitors are wooing the bride of Agafya Tikhonovna, among them the official Yaichnitsa, who is only interested in marriage for the sake of the dowry, the socialite Anuchkin, and the middle-aged sailor Zhevakin. From such an abundance of suitors, the bride is lost and asks everyone to come to her in the evening.

Kochkarev advises Agafya Tikhonovna to choose Podkolesin from among the suitors, saying that the rest are unworthy people. The bride drives away the newcomers, Eggs, Zhevakin, and Anuchkin. Kochkarev tells them that this bride is an ill-mannered fool.

After much hesitation and doubt, Podkolesin still does not dare to directly and openly propose to the girl, and then Kochkarev actually proposes for him on behalf of his friend. Agafya agrees. But left alone, the groom is again subject to doubts and fears, and sees no other way out of this situation other than jumping out the window, which is what he does.