Sinopec and Sibur to Produce Rubber in Krasnoyarsk

May 15 – China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and Sibur, the Russian petrochemicals group, have entered into a cooperation agreement to form a butadiene nitrile rubber joint venture in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

The cooperation deal was signed by Sibur’s CEO Dmitry Konov and Sinopec’s president Wang Tianpu at the recent Russian-Chinese Forum on commercial investment cooperation in Moscow.

The cooperation agreement includes a mechanism for the financing of the joint venture, and arrangements relating to share capital, management, raw material supplies and marketing. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia Insists Foreign Companies Use GLONASS

Apr. 20 – The Russian government will insist that foreign companies in the country use the GLONASS satellite navigation system equipment, Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov said at the Sixth Annual Satellite Navigation Forum in Moscow.

According to Surkov, the requirement to use chipsets supporting Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) will affect communication equipment producers and carmakers.

Meanwhile, some of the foreign gadgets already support GLONASS. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia’s Yandex Money to Accept Foreign Bank Cards

Apr. 11 – Users from any country, other than Russia, can make payments to the sites of Russian companies or e-shops through Russia’s online payment system Yandex.Money. Yandex is a popular Russian search engine.

The payment system has recently launched a redesigned website: money.yandex.ru. The website is the main space for transactions, such as money transfers, online payments and transfers of virtual Yandex money to users’ bank accounts. Money transfers will take up to two business days. Read the rest of this entry »

Miners in Tyva Republic to Subsidize Reindeer Breeding

Mar. 15 – The government of Siberia’s Tyva Republic has asked foreign and domestic miners operating in the region to pay subsidies to local reindeer breeders, according to the republic’s web site.

Under the agreement, China’s Longxing and the local Golevskaya Mining Company will allocate 600 rubles (US$20) for the maintenance of each reindeer in the Todzhinsky District of Tyva, where both companies operate and where 77 percent of the region’s reindeer population is located. The funds will go to the district’s reindeer breeding farms. Read the rest of this entry »

The Republic of Tuva and the State of Russian Coal Exports

Mar. 14 – Russia’s US$8 billion investment into Siberia to develop the Tyva Ulug-Khem Coal Basin, estimated to have 2.5 times more reserves than the Mongolian Tavan Tolgoi field, could double the country’s metallurgical coal exports by 2020.

“Annual coal production in Tyva may reach 40 million metric tons in 2020 should all the companies implement the announced plans in full,” Dmitry Sakhno, project manager at OAO Severstal, Russia’s second- largest steel producer, said in an interview with Bloomberg.

At the same time, according to Sakhno, the delays by some of the mining companies as well as complexity’s of developing the region may curb production by 2020 to 15 million to 20 million tons. Read the rest of this entry »

French Vostok to Become Pioneer in Russian Electricity Market

Feb. 29 – French grid company Vostok has been contracted to run the Tomsk Distribution Company of Russia’s grid firm MRSK for an initial 18-month probationary period, the companies announced on Tuesday. It’s the first time a foreign entity has been permitted to manage an operating entity in Russia.

“This is the first instance of such cooperation with Western partners. The French party has made the right decision by choosing Siberia for its operations,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin noted.

Tomsk is a city in the southwest edge of the great Siberian Taiga, the administrative center of Tomsk Region, located about 3,500 kilometers from Moscow. Read the rest of this entry »

Talks Concerning Russian Pipeline through Korean Peninsula to Continue

Feb. 7 – North Korea’s new leadership supports an agreement on the proposed extension of a Russian pipeline into North and South Korea.

Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s recently appointed 29-year-old “supreme leader of the party, state and army” is looking favorably to gas pipeline construction from Russia that would run across the Korean Peninsula, Russian Ambassador in Pyongyang Valery Sukhinin told reporters last Friday.

“Talks between Russia’s state-run Gazprom and the oil industry ministry from the North Korean side are taking place,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

Russian Gold Production Increases, but Fails to Meet Expectations

Feb. 6 – Russian gold production rose 3.6 percent year-on-year in 2011 to 209 metric tons, but below an earlier forecast, data published on Wednesday by the Gold Industrialists’ Union industry lobby showed.

The union expected Russia to produce 211 tons of gold last year – up from 202 tons in 2010 – of which 185 tons was expected to be mined.

Despite missing expectations, Russia, whose reserves are second only to South Africa’s, managed to return to positive growth after annual output declined by 1.4 percent in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Russia to Become Europe’s Second Largest Retail Market

Feb. 3 – Russia is to become Europe’s second largest retail market with sales in 2011 amounting to US$621 billion, according to Euromonitor International, and may become the largest market in Europe by 2013-2014.

Retail sales in Russia rose 9.5 percent year-on-year in December, compared to 2.6 percent growth in the UK. Read the rest of this entry »

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