By John Helmer in Moscow Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou (left image) met in Moscow on Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (right image) in hope of reviving Russian plans to deliver a new crude oil pipeline from Burgas, on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, to the Greek terminal of Alexandroupoli, on the […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Tax-free exports of crude oil from Kozmino, on the Sea of Japan — Russia’s newest oil tanker loading terminal — may be eliminated by April, after a showdown last Friday between the oil industry tsar, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and the budget tsar, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. For the […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Gennady Timchenko, a powerful Russian businessman, was identified this week in Helsinki as behind International Petroleum Products (IPP), a small trader which won the first 100,000-tonne crude oil loading assignment at Kozmino, Russia’s new oil port on the Sea of Japan. The news, which a Timchenko spokesman in London is […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, January 14th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow To all junior miners, resource project developers, and investors in the risky wilds of Kazakhstan, be of good cheer — a Supreme Court judgement issued on December 11 in Sydney, Australia, has awarded the equivalent of US$11.4 million in compensation, penalties, and costs against a group of lawyers who have […]

by John Helmer - Monday, December 14th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) has re-emerged from a bankruptcy proceeding initiated earlier this year by De Beers, to launch new charges in the Colorado state court against Russian oil company LUKoil, and well-known Russian oligarchs, Vagit Alekperov (lead bearer) and Alisher Usmanov (2nd bearer). ADC is now being directed by […]

by John Helmer - Monday, December 14th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Land-based delivery of Gazprom’s natural gas is more than holding its own in the European gas market against competing seaborne deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to a report from Gazprom in Moscow yesterday. This says that Gazprom’s exports to the European Union (EU) increased by 19.4% in the […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Ronald Knox’s “ten commandments” that summarize all stories in the detective genre were published in 1929. Here they are: 1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know. 2. All supernatural or […]

by John Helmer - Friday, November 6th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow There is no evidence currently available that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin has anything like the hot-line to God which enabled Noah of biblical fame to master the surge of the Black Sea, and with the help of the birdie — the first spy satellite on record – to make […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, November 5th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow The new Economy and Energy Minister of Bulgaria, Traycho Traykov, has issued a warning to Moscow that if Russia intends to build a new cross-Turkey crude oil pipeline, running from Samsun on the Black Sea, to Ceyhan, on the Aegean, that will mean the cancellation of the long planned Burgas-Alexandroupolis […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow Gazprom, Russia’s leading company, has told Fairplay that reports that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin agreed this week with the Turkish government to reroute the South Stream gas pipeline on to Turkish territory do not mean that Gazprom has decided to lay a land segment of the pipeline in Turkey, […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
No Comments »