By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s fast-expanding shipping mogul, Roman Trotsenko, chief executive of the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), has told Fairplay that reports he is about to buy Nordic Yards, or invest in a joint venture, are false. That may be true; or then again, Trotsenko may be bargaining over the purchase price.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Roughly one rouble in every three spent from the Russian state budget goes out the treasury door in the form of a procurement contract. According to the statute which regulates this process – Federal Law No. 94-FZ, “On Procurement of Goods, Works and Services for State and Municipal Needs”, enacted […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 18th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of ports and shipping, Igor Sechin (image of Paris, centre), told Fairplay today he believes the best replacement for the storm-damaged Sochi cargo port is Kavkaz, on the Kerch Strait. Sechin confirmed that last week in Turkey he had spoken in favour of a […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Russian dockers at St Petersburg and Tuapse are threatening to strike unless the stevedore and port companies employing them accept inflation indexation of their salaries, which is provided by Russia’s labour law, but is not included in their current work contracts. The threat is aimed at Russia’s richest individual, the […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 11th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow The treasure cave which the legendary Ali Baba found is not known to have had a back-door. Otherwise, when it happened that Ali’s greedy brother Qassim forgot the ‘Open Sesame!’ for the entrance, he’d have been able to safely escape the arrival of the forty thieves. Instead, Qassim was discovered, […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 11th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Sergei Pugachev, the owner of Northern Shipyard and Baltic Plant, two leading St. Petersburg yards, is closing a deal to sell the properties to the state, following pressure from creditors on Pugachev’s holding, United Industrial Corporation (OPB), and its associated bank, International Industrial Bank (IIB).

by John Helmer - Thursday, June 10th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow The Russian state bailout bank, VEB, chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has defended the pricing of two Arctic ice-class, Panamax sized tankers ordered by Sovcomflot, which analysts and brokers have criticized as substantially above market price.

by John Helmer - Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco, ticker FESH)), the Russian dry-cargo fleet operator, plans to make a public issue of new shares to pay down debt. A total of 659.6 million new shares will be issued, the Fesco spokesman Stanislav Vartanyan told Fairplay; this bloc of shares makes about 23% of […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 24th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow On April 12 NATO launched four large-scale war games in northern Europe. A report by Rick Rozoff for the Media Monitors Network, “Relentless Global Drive: NATO on Six Continents in Seven Days”, published on April 22, documented the official announcements from several US and NATO command sources, and the British […]

by John Helmer - Friday, May 7th, 2010
No Comments »

A spokesman for the Investigative Committee, a special branch of the General Prosecutor’s office, said yesterday, after the news of the rescue had reached Moscow, that the surviving pirates would be taken to Russia and charged under the piracy article of the Russian Criminal Code — Part 3, Article 227. He and Russian Navy spokesmen […]

by John Helmer - Friday, May 7th, 2010
No Comments »