“Vedomosti”: “The railway dispute”
Gazprom will invest 33 billion roubles in 2010 in a railway on the Yamal Peninsula, for which it will expect compensation from Russian Railways (RZhD). But the latter, in turn, expects Gazprom to pay for future losses on that railway branch.
Monopolies must help one another, Vladimir Putin said in September, ordering RZhD to buy the Yamal Railway from Gazprom: the gas company should produce gas and not build railways. The cost of the railway spur is about 130 billion roubles, so Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller promptly offered to sell the railway for that amount, but RZhD President Vladimir Yakunin turned the offer down: "For that amount, let them keep it." 130 billion roubles is a sum that RZhD cannot afford to pay, Yakunin explained, while Gazprom recouped part of its expenditure through gas transportation tariffs. RZhD's investment programme for 2010 is worth 280 billion roubles (compared to Gazprom's 802 billion roubles).
However, the cost of the Yamal railway may increase: in 2010 Gazprom expects to spend about 33 billion roubles on its construction, Vedomosti was told by two sources close to the concern's investment programme (the figure for 2009 is 32.8 billion roubles). And that would only pay for part of the railway. The estimate will definitely get RZhD to move faster on a buy-out, one of our sources joked, adding that Gazprom is already looking forward to getting the money.
RZhD has not commented on Gazprom's cost estimate. Pursuant to Vladimir Putin's instructions, a panel of experts has been formed, a spokesman for the railway monopoly says. But he did not say when the panel would report back on the results of its work. The protocol containing Putin's instructions (Vedomosti has obtained a copy) does not set a deadline for working out the terms of the transfer of the railway to RZhD's balance sheet.
A Gazprom spokesman declined to comment.
RZhD itself expects compensation from Gazprom: if the rail branch is estimated by discounting cash flows, its cost is negative, says a source close to the monopoly. This railway branch, which provides access to the gas fields, is so long, he adds, that even the transport of equipment to bring the fields on production will not recoup the cost of building.
This opinion is shared by the strategy committee of the RZhD Board of Directors, which recommended in September that any schemes for bringing RZhD into the operation or ownership of the Yamal Railway must contain the provision that it will not pay Gazprom for it, and that the latter will compensate the future cost of its operation, says Andrei Sharonov, a member of the RZhD Board of Directors and executive director of Troika Dialog. So far, neither the board, nor the government have discussed the issue.
Yelena Mazneva
http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2009/11/26/219868
