Russia and economic war by the west #2

Western business has a good reason to stay in Russia, by Olga Samofalova for VZGLYAD. 08.07.2022.

Russia introduces counter-sanctions against unfriendly countries. Now large companies from unfriendly countries will not be able to do anything with their assets in Russia. This applies to foreign banks and oil and gas companies. What now awaits the assets of BP, ExxonMobil and Total? And for what purpose are these counter-sanctions being introduced - to punish or still help foreign partners?

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on special economic measures that prohibits foreign companies from unfriendly countries from making any transactions with their shares in strategic Russian enterprises. This decree concerns, firstly, banks - Russian "daughters" of foreign banks. Secondly, companies of the fuel and energy complex. The government must prepare a complete list within 10 days. But the decree itself already mentions transactions with shares in the Sakhalin-1 project and the Kharyaginskoye field.

For now, restrictions will be introduced until the end of 2022. However, the period can be repeatedly extended. There is one small loophole - a transaction prohibited by the decree can be made only with the special permission of the President of the Russian Federation. That is, the decision to sell will be made individually.

“Foreign investors who want to get out of Russian business will not only be unable to sell their stakes and shares in strategic Russian enterprises, but even donate, exchange or transfer these assets to a creditor to pay off a debt. That is, the shares of public companies will be blocked in the depository, and the transaction for the sale of a stake in an LLC or a joint venture will be invalid, ”explains Natalya Milchakova, Lead Analyst at Freedom Finance Global.

“This was done on purpose, because there are already several precedents when Western companies tried to sell their shares in Russian assets. For example, BP and ExxonMobil. At the same time, ExxonMobil, as the operator of the Sakhalin-1 project, also sharply reduced production. This affected the total volume of oil production in Russia. I believe this has accelerated the adoption of the relevant presidential decree,”
says Alexey Gromov.

Back in April, the project operator Exxon Neftegas introduced a force majeure regime and reduced production. As a result, by the end of July, oil production at the Sakhalin-1 project decreased by 22 times - to 10 thousand barrels per day, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev said.

Just a couple of days ago, it became known from ExxonMobil's financial report that the company was negotiating the transfer of the Sakhalin-1 project to another party.

The Sakhalin-1 project is being implemented under the terms of a production sharing agreement (PSA). Its participants are ExxonMobil (30%), Rosneft (20%), Japanese SODECO (30%) and Indian ONGC (20%).

Why did Russia adopt such a decree? “The purpose of the decree is to make it as difficult as possible for companies from unfriendly countries with which there is an economic war, a painless exit from Russian assets. Now they cannot sell their shares on market terms. Russia offers them to stay and work as before. And if you don't want to, then transfer your assets to Russian companies free of charge. This is a punishment in response to sanctions against Russia,” says Gromov.

“In our opinion, the President of Russia signed such a decree in order to save the Russian stock market from a collapse that could occur if foreign investors began to leave Russia en masse. Also, apparently, the authorities do not want Russian assets to depreciate if massive sales of shares begin,” Milchakova said.

But perhaps the presidential decree is a desire to help foreign partners keep their business in Russia, which they, in all honesty, do not want to lose. “The owners and management of international companies involved in projects in Russia are under serious pressure. They are forced to withdraw from Russian assets based on direct sanctions or reputational considerations.

The adopted decree may be aimed at ensuring that foreign partners have a “good” reason to continue to remain shareholders in Russian companies”, Philip Muradyan, Senior Director for Corporate Ratings at the Expert RA Agency, believes.

Who will be affected by the new presidential decree? It will probably affect the British company BP, which at the end of February announced the withdrawal of its 20% stake in the assets of Rosneft. However, Gromov does not rule out that special conditions for exiting the Russian business may be agreed upon for this company.

But ExxonMobil is unlikely to make an exception due to the company's production cuts. The adopted presidential decree cannot directly affect oil production. However, Gromov does not rule out that the next step after this decree will be the liquidation of the Sakhalin-1 PSA, a change in legal status and the transfer of the project to a Russian operator, following the example of how it was done under the Sakhalin-2 PSA. “With Sakhalin-2, it was easier to do this, since the operator of the project was Sakhalin Energy, which was controlled by Gazprom, and in Sakhalin-1 the operator is a foreigner,” the expert explains. Recently, the new Russian company Sakhalin Energy became the operator of Sakhalin-2.

“As a result, ExxonMobil will have no choice but to simply leave the project without receiving a cent, or continue to work, but on Russian terms. When control in the Sakhalin-1 project passes to a specially created Russian company, it will already be able to resolve the issue of a collapse in oil production,” - says the expert.

The new decree may affect the share of TotalEnergies (20%), which has been participating in the Kharyaginskoye field project for 20 years together with the Norwegian Equinor (30%). Earlier, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin instructed to transfer the shares of these foreign companies in the field to the Zarubezhneft company. Its share after the transaction could grow from 40 to 90%, and another 10% will be retained by the Nenets Oil Company. Unofficially, it was reported that the deal could be cashless.

“The shares in Sakhalin-1 and the Kharyaga PSA will most likely go to specialized Russian investors – Rosneft and Zarubezhneft. The future change of owners will practically not affect the operating activities of these projects,” Milchakova believes.

In the gas sector, the German company Wintershall, which has joint projects with Gazprom in Russia, the Achimovskoye field (part of the Urengoyskoye) and the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field (35% owned by the German company, 40% by Gazprom and 25% by the Austrian OMV).

However, Wintershall at the end of July 2022 continued to manage its Russian assets, which produce 35 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and was not going to leave them. She also does not intend to leave the Nord Stream operator company Nord Stream. Leaving Russia would be a great gift for the Russian government in Moscow, said company chief Mario Meren. The company has a legal obligation to protect the value of its assets in the country, he said.

As for banks, the intention to sell their assets in Russia was announced by the Italian group UniCredit, the American Citigroup, and the British HSBC. The latter, according to Western media, signed an agreement on the sale of the Russian subsidiary to Expobank, but the deal did not manage to receive approval from either the Central Bank or the government.

“Now the Russian subsidiaries of foreign banks will continue to operate in Russia until the authorities allow these banks to exit Russian business through a normal market transaction. Although it is possible that in some cases foreign banks may be allowed to sell Russian assets to any Russian bank, it is not yet clear what could be the reason for an exception to the rules,” Milchakova argues.

https://vz.ru/economy/2022/8/7/1171196.html

Said it before and will say it again... western companies are not investing in Russia to help Russia... this was not charity... they were making good money on their business opportunities... and the companies that have immediately cut and run should lose all their assets and not just that but they are also throwing away all the work and good will that was needed to do business in Russia to begin with.

To be fair some companies have been under enormous pressure to leave the Russian market and have outright refused to do so... especially those companies in the field of food production and distribution, and while some of that is because they probably make good money in Russia, a lot of it is also to prevent world shortages of such a critical product as food, so I think such companies should be rewarded.

Note these new sanctions from Russia do not prevent western companies retaining ownership and control if they continue to operate normally... having a Russian work force and producing their products and paying tax... and not giving in to the bullshit political crap the west loves to roll around in... like a pig in shit.

The growth of the surplus of Russia's foreign trade balance in 1 year,even against the background of the special operation on demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine...

Sanctions working...

January to June 2021 trade surplus $70 bl
January to June 2022 trade surplus $158.4 bl



https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1556743491698450432

franco wrote:The growth of the surplus of Russia's foreign trade balance in 1 year,even against the background of the special operation on demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine...

Sanctions working...

January to June 2021 trade surplus $70 bl
January to June 2022 trade surplus $158.4 bl



https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1556743491698450432

This is not exactly great as imports plunged. It shows that level of economic activity is lower. All this data is still noise. It shows that isolating Russia from global economy is much harder than west thought.
For longer term economic prospects we will need to see some level of import rise and stabilization.
Before anyone starts with import substitution, maybe in 3-5 years. It is impossible to substitute anything in 4 months. Collapsed exports point to lower economic activity and breaking of supply chains with the west.
Rise and stabilization of imports, at some level, will show that Russian economy managed to find substitutes and set up new supply chains.

It shows that isolating Russia from global economy is much harder than west thought.

Actually it shows the rest of the world does not follow the US blindly like the west does, and they didn't even isolate Russia from western economies because they still buy gas and oil and other materials from Russia.

Collapsed exports point to lower economic activity and breaking of supply chains with the west.

And look at the problems with baby food in the US... which is not made in Russia... so supply chain issues due to covid are effecting everyone and will influence Russian figures too.

Rise and stabilization of imports, at some level, will show that Russian economy managed to find substitutes and set up new supply chains.

Some alternatives they get they didn't buy before because western products might have been better quality or easier to get in the quantities required or any other number of reasons, but with the west turning its back on Russia what Russia can do is work on high quality replacements of their own either on their own or as a joint venture with their new sources from the rest of the world, which also means western producers will now get competition for their products too... so not only losing the Russian market but gaining credible competition on international markets too.

Western press: Russia benefits from the annexation of the South-East of Ukraine - more than 12 trillion dollars

After the start of the Russian special operation on Ukrainian territory, a significant part of the South-East of Ukraine with colossal mineral reserves in the bowels turned out to be under the control of Russia. This was reported on August 10 by the American newspaper The Washington Post, referring to a study by analysts from the Canadian company SecDev.

Experts have calculated that 63% of coal deposits, 11% of oil deposits, 20% of gas deposits, 42% of metal deposits and 33% of deposits of rare earth and other important minerals, including lithium, were in the hands of Moscow. The total volume of natural resources is equivalent to at least 12.4 trillion dollars.

The war in Ukraine is a battle for the mineral and energy wealth of this country. <...> The Kremlin is stealing from this country the building blocks of its economy - its natural resources - says in the publication of the Western press.

Russia also gained access to deposits of limestone, titanium ore, uranium, gold, zirconium ore and strontium. In the future, after the accession of these territories to the Russian Federation, Kyiv may forever lose access to them, and this is almost 2/3 of natural resources.

Attention was drawn to the fact that some of these deposits are difficult to access or require exploration to assess their recovery efficiency. Russia gained access to some of them after the annexation of Crimea and the formation of the LPR and DPR in the Donbass. In general, for Western Europe, the acquisition by Russia of all these lands in Ukraine will be tantamount to a tactical failure and will entail direct negative consequences for the energy security of Europeans.

https://topcor-ru.translate.goog/27391-zapadnaja-pressa-vygoda-rossii-ot-prisoedinenija-jugo-vostoka-ukrainy-bolee-12-trln-dollarov.html?utm_source=finobzor.ru&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

NOTE: plus about 40% of the agricultural...yeah baby!

Sanctions ''working'' perfectly... Inflation rates in Europe July 2022


https://topcor-ru.translate.goog/27391-zapadnaja-pressa-vygoda-rossii-ot-prisoedinenija-jugo-vostoka-ukrainy-bolee-12-trln-dollarov.html?utm_source=finobzor.ru&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

Apparently the correspondence between Siemens and Gazprom has been leaked and it shows that Kanada did not fix all
the issues with the Nord Stream 1 turbine that was held hostage. So it is not usable even if it gets to Russia. The
song and dance by Sholz around this turbine is a pathetic diversion from the fact that it is not ready for use. Forget
about the fact that its chain of custody is grossly disrupted and it "disappeared" long enough for sabotage alterations
to have been carried out. Recall that the US had the equipment supplied to the USSR for export gas pipeline operation
sabotaged this way.

In general, for Western Europe, the acquisition by Russia of all these lands in Ukraine will be tantamount to a tactical failure and will entail direct negative consequences for the energy security of Europeans.

Russia wont seize those resources, they will likely support the locals to extract those resources and purchase them from them for a reasonable price... something the west is unlikely to do...

A huuuuge middle finger to Biden/Blinken.

That exports chart in post 281 above... that red line shows Turkish exports... that is going to go up substantially too.

Russia is going to shift from imports from the west to imports from the rest of the world, that will include Turkey and China and Iran and India and lots of other countries that can fill the gaps created by western sanctions.

+ some EU banks are following the american example and trade russian bonds again.

Reading all the economical developments and the backfire from US/EU sanctions...

The West right now...

This will put the cat among the pidgins. Sanctions bring forward a probable Russian move by years.

Unbelievable, gold producers actually getting a say on its price

I’ve just finished a report on this (if you are a Capitalist Exploits subscriber then it will be in your hands shortly), but I’ll touch on this here.

Russia proposes a new international standard for trading in precious metals: the Moscow World Standard (MWS) which will become an alternative to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) which systematically manipulates precious metals markets to depress prices. According to Russia’s Finance Ministry, this new, independent international structure is necessary for “normalizing the functioning of the precious metals sector” and its creation is “critically important.”

“The basis of this new structure will be a new, specialized international precious metals brokerage headquartered in Moscow, which will rely on the MWS. Also proposed is a committee for fixing precious metals prices composed of central banks and largest banks of countries that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia) that currently have a presence on the precious metals market.

According to the Russian Finance Ministry, precious metals prices will be fixed either in the national currencies of key member-countries or using new monetary units used in international trade—for instance, the new BRICS currency proposed by Putin.

The Finance Ministry wants to make membership in this organization attractive to all market participants, especially China, India, Venezuela, Peru and other South American countries, as well as Africa. It aims to swiftly destroy the monopoly of LBMA and to provide for stable development of the precious metals sector.

In essence, Russia proposes to create a market for gold, platinum, etc., which will be regulated by countries that control the resources for these metals. This would be, simply put, a revolution. On the basis of this new market, it intends to further the system of bilateral trade in national currencies that specifically excludes dollars, euros and pounds.

And now, some statistics on the world gold supply. The production share of the US and other hostile nations* produce a grand total of 22% of the world’s gold. Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS and Africa, together, produce 57%—already a controlling share. Now add Peru and Venezuela, and the number goes up to 62%.

To put it in the plainest terms possible, Russia is colluding with a number of other countries to exclude the dollar, the euro and the pound from the system of international settlements, starting with precious metals but not necessarily stopping there. These countries control a lion’s share of gold production. For starters, Russia has fixed the price of gold in rubles at 5000₽/g, which works out to $2,447.17 per troy ounce. This compares rather favorably to the current LBMA fix of $1737.84. The days of LBMA’s ability to drive down gold prices using paper gold manipulation appear be running out.


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-08-15/russia-proposes-new-standard-compete-rigged-london-bullion-market-association-lbma

So their actions to destroy Russia is weakening their control of the world, and also weakening and reducing the interest in their currencies, which they also relied upon for control and power.

I wonder when they will expand this to include fabrics and material and energy... lets face it, all the financial mechanisms based in the US that artificially give the west good credit ratings when they don't deserve them, and bad credit ratings to countries that should have better ratings... sounds like the playing field is going to get leveled and some countries high up on mountains who could throw their ball for miles because of how high up they were will suddenly struggle to compete...

This game of dodge ball is going to get interesting.

I am watching Gonzalo Lira's round table with Mark Sleboda and others and the topic of ICs came up. Everyone on the panel
is barely aware of Russia's domestic capacity for IC production. You would think that this strategic sector would get more
attention from "experts". Russia is sufficient in military IC production. It does not need Chinese parts. As for the consumer
sector, China is good enough. Moving away from Intel to ARM variants is not such a big loss.

Sleboda made another statement that really lowered my view of him. He claimed that the 30 million Soviet losses
were because of the meat grinder on the front during WWII. This statement cannot be innocent. It is total BS.
Soviet losses consisted of 14-18 million civilians (the latter is more credible) and the rest were military losses.
The comparison to German losses is BS since it does not count Nazi allied losses. It also ignores the massive
Soviet losses at the beginning of WW2 when three million POWs fell into Nazi hands and were starved and exposed
to death on open field camps. The Soviet military effort was not human waves or an Ukr style meat grinder.

There are sources that claim up to 4,5 million POW´s after the gigantic cauldrons (Kesselschlachten in german) in the first few months of
operation "Barbarossa". There deliberate murder was possibly the greatest crime of the war.

Not to mention women in uniform were just shot... they didn't have facilities for the men they had captured let alone separate ones for women... but they don't like talking about that... a bit embarrassing.