Sechin and Rotenberg are losing influence: why Putin relies on new nominees. The story of the rise and fall of "gray eminence" Igor Sechin Sechin's entourage

Sergei Sobyanin (Photo: Vladislav Shatilo / RBC)

Rossiya Bank shareholder Yuri Kovalchuk and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin have a high chance of remaining as a member of Politburo 2.0. The mayor of the capital, according to the authors of the report, is one of the few members of Putin's inner circle who has a clear project () for the entire period of the next presidential term. Sobyanin is the number two contender for the post of prime minister, the report says.

Who will weaken

The positions of the other three members of the "Politburo" may be shaken after the presidential election, the authors of the document predict. We are talking about the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and businessman Arkady Rotenberg - they may have difficulty with the agenda "which they can propose to the president." “Sechin, Volodin and Rotenberg are in the transition zone, there is a risk of their weakening. They can become candidates for membership in the Politburo,” Yevgeny Minchenko, head of Minchenko Consulting, told RBC.

“Sechin, at first glance, is at the peak of his influence,” experts write. However, the "assertive management style" of the head of Rosneft is forming a broad elite coalition against him. In particular, the subject of criticism of Sechin is his going beyond his own responsibility, the financial results of Rosneft and its costly international projects, the possible negative consequences against AFK Sistema for the investment climate in the country, the report says. In addition, Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev "became an example of violation of the unspoken rules of relations." At the same time, Sechin's power resource has declined, since several employees of the TFR and FSB close to him were fired. Therefore, for him, “the challenge is to choose an intra-elite strategy and, possibly, create a coalition, to which he was not previously inclined,” the authors of the report state.

Rosneft spokesman Mikhail Leontiev, contacted by RBC for comment, said that people who make up this kind of ratings have signs of a "serious mental disorder." “I don’t know if Minchenko has a disorder, but I have doubts about the adequacy of his forecast. This is megalomania - to put people in their places: I will cross out this one, and I will raise this one, and I will lower the other, ”Leontiev told RBC. As for Minchenko's arguments about the reasons for a possible decline in Sechin's influence after the presidential election, the Rosneft spokesman called them far-fetched. In particular, the thesis about the negative consequences of the lawsuit against AFK Sistema for the investment climate in the country "raises suspicions of selfish intentions on the part of the author of the rating." “A person without selfish thoughts and in his right mind cannot assert this. This means that he is either mentally upset or self-serving, ”concluded Leontiev in an interview with RBC.

The positions of another member of Politburo 2.0, Vyacheslav Volodin, may be weakened due to the fact that “the actual merger of all parliamentary parties into a single ruling pro-Putin coalition reduces the influence of the leaders of formally opposition parties and the significance of parliament as a platform representing the whole of society,” experts write . At the time of submission of the note, RBC could not get a comment from Volodin's representatives.

Finally, the third member of the "Politburo", who is at risk, Arkady Rotenberg, who for a long time performed "the functions of a communicator with foreign economic elites", may politically weaken for the following reasons. His hit in, a general cooling in relations between Russia and the West, and "the problematic nature of new projects in the eastern direction create difficulties for the group (Rotenberg) with goal-setting," the report says. Rotenberg's representative declined to comment on RBC, arguing that the businessman is not involved in politics.

Who will rise

Several candidates for Politburo 2.0 have a chance of becoming full-fledged members of Putin's inner circle after the election, the authors of the report say.

Anton Vaino (Photo: Mikhail Metzel / TASS)

First of all, these are the head of the Kremlin administration, Anton Vaino, and his first deputy, Sergei Kiriyenko. Vaino "becomes one of the president's most trusted people and gradually builds up informal influence and apparatus experience." Kiriyenko, according to the authors of the report, has a long history of relations with Putin, a reputation as an effective manager and has a good image potential.

The head of Sberbank German Gref, head of the Center for Strategic Research Alexei Kudrin, Deputy Prime Minister, presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov also have the opportunity to become full members of Politburo 2.0. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, can also claim the role of a figure from Putin's inner circle - the only one of the leaders of the regions who "possesses an independent power resource and a system of informal economic influence in other regions of Russia."

Political scientist Aleksey Makarkin considers the allocation of Politburo 2.0 rather conditional, and, in his opinion, it is very difficult to reliably predict who will leave and who will remain in Putin's inner circle. “You can remember 2007, when Viktor Zubkov was appointed prime minister, which no one even among very well-informed people expected,” he told RBC. According to Makarkin, Putin will decide who will leave and who will remain in his inner circle, based on the criteria of the usefulness of a particular person, and in a variety of ways.

Makarkin does not rule out that, for example, Volodin's influence may increase, since after the elections there will be a need for unpopular reforms, and the parliament will have to communicate more with society. The expert explains the possible weakening of Sechin's positions by the activity of the head of Rosneft and the emerging intra-elite coalition against him. At the same time, this coalition is quite situational, the real positions of Sechin can be judged by the outcome of the Ulyukaev case, the expert believes.

The authors of the report believe that the Politburo 2.0 model may be preserved until the electoral cycle of 2021-2024, although its personal composition may be seriously updated. Within this informal structure, two broad coalitions are forming. The first of them is “mobilization” (military-industrial complex plus security forces, with a core of Chemezov, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, Zolotov and Shoigu) and the second is “modernization” (liberal bloc of government, private business, potential participants - Medvedev, Kovalchuk, Sobyanin, Kudrin, Gref).

The government formed in May 2018 after the presidential elections, according to the authors of the report, runs the risk of becoming a government of unpopular reforms, in connection with which the chances of the new prime minister to become Putin's successor will be small.

Another conclusion of experts: with a high probability that Putin will remain in good physical shape, the issue of a successor will be really discussed in the process of preparing the 2021 parliamentary elections. “It is possible to work out a special status for Putin after he leaves the presidency (“Russian ayatollah”),” but much will depend on the outcome of the US presidential election in 2020, the holding believes. At the same time, the authors of the report predict an almost inevitable further deterioration in relations with the West, which threatens to provoke conflicts along the perimeter of Russia. All this will shift the "Politburo 2.0" to the "mobilization scenario", experts conclude.

I would like you to say a few words about the Ulyukaev-Sechin process, because it is turning into such a process ... or not?

A. Venediktov- Of course. This is a big surprise for me. I thought there was little to surprise me about the elite around Putin. It must be admitted that Ulyukaev and Sechin are absolutely pro-Putin politicians. One federal minister. The other was a vice-premier. Now he is the head of the state monopoly Rosneft.

And, of course, the weight of Igor Ivanovich Sechin, if not his friendship with the president, then his work with the president since the early 90s, and Alexei Ulyukaev, who is in this team, of course, as a military specialist from the Gaidar Institute, that is, a hired a manager and a team member… And two things surprised me. I was surprised that Ulyukaev's accusation called Sechin to court. And, since they were, as I understand now, the two of them in the office during this story - word against word ...

K. Larina- When transferring money, right?

A. Venediktov- I don't know what was in the suitcase. No, handing over a suitcase... suitcases.

K. Larina- There were no witnesses?

A. Venediktov- Not. And the fact that if Sechin comes, and that's word against word... And I understand that Alexey Valentinovich Ulyukaev, an extremely cautious and experienced politician, practically challenges Sechin to a public duel, pulls him out of the shadows - and what will happen when it happens? .. This means one thing to me: a very serious alliance is being formed against Sechin within the Putin elite.

We see that just yesterday, not the last person in the Putin hierarchy, Ramzan Kadyrov again sharply criticized Sechin publicly. Listen, when you build some kind of factory, who cares? Well, I mean in public. Well, you are partners there - Rosneft, the Chechen Republic - agree, what are you? Out, at all - this is a public demage, this is a challenge, this is a tool.

And a very interesting alliance is emerging: Medvedev, Chemezov, Kadyrov, Ulyukaev - against Sechin.

K. Larina- And who is Sechin?

A. Venediktov- And Sechin has Sechin. Igor Ivanovich Sechin has Sechin. It is in this story that Sechin has an alliance with the military, with the Federal Security Service - we see this precisely in the case of Ulyukaev, including. We see he wins, he loses. I mean Sechin. Could not reassign Oleg Feoktistov to the FSB. Sent it to reserve. This is the man who helped arrest and organized the whole story with Ulyukaev. Former deputy head of the economic department of the FSB, let's call it that - for economic crimes.

That is, in fact, the elite is nervous. In fact, it started there ... Usually, as Churchill correctly said, bulldogs are under the rug. For some reason, they popped out from under the carpet. That's right... Leaks, plums, cunning there... Venediktov, who is told something from all sides - and suddenly none... Here comes the federal minister in front of the court and says: "This is a provocateur, this is he ...". But Sechin is now, one might say, the third or fourth person in the country. And the person is not safe at all. And he, therefore, throws him such a challenge.

K. Larina Is this not a random story?

A. Venediktov No, there are no accidents. And to say that Ulyukaev has nothing to lose... And to kill him in a cell? It was the same. And do not say that he is under house arrest. It will be necessary - they will find it. Everyone has something to lose always. People are dangerous. We see how Sechin is fighting against AFK Sistema... This means that there is an active redistribution of zones of influence. And the fact that Ulyukaev practically volunteered ... or, rather, Sechin himself asked for a public verbal duel through the accusation, is something new in our state. Everything is usually under the carpet - Putin sweeps these bulldogs with kicks under the carpet. And here - allowed.

K. Larina- After all, if it were necessary, as I understand it, to remove a specific federal minister, it could have been done not by Sechin's hands, right? There must have been other options.

A. Venediktov- I must say that the federal minister enjoyed Putin's great confidence, as far as I know. And, in fact, the fact that Ulyukaev was removed was not removed from Ulyukaev, but it was removed from Putin's ear an extra person whom he trusted. There is no need for him to sow there ... and winnow. Let Oreshkin be there, in which there is not much approach to the president, because, well, he just didn’t build up his muscles ... “Well, in the meantime, I am responsible for energy, I am responsible ... I determine the president’s opinion on energy, that is, where is the main money, - I, Igor Ivanovich Sechin.

And so, in fact, we will wait for Sechin to testify.

K. Larina- He'll come, do you think?

A. Venediktov- This accusation demanded. This is not a defense of Ulyukaev, this is an accusation. It's agreed, of course.

K. Larina- Interesting.

A. Venediktov- Interesting, of course. Fight against corruption!

K. Larina- By the way.

A. Venediktov- Sechin and Navalny are hitting corrupt officials at the same point!

K. Larina“And together we do one thing.

I wanted to build myself a VIP ship, presumably for 1.2 billion rubles, but due to problems with the business, I had to sell it unfinished. The ship sailed away to friends of another friend of Vladimir Putin, State Manager No. 1 Igor Sechin- Iskandar Mahmudov and Andrey Bokarev. The ship, under Timchenko, was called "Tanais", Sechin's friends were renamed "Princess Olga" - like that ocean yacht worth over $150 million, on which journalists considered Olga Sechina, and the Basmanny Court not considered.

Nobel Perpetuum

However, the regulars of industry forums did not take the flagship of cruise river transport very friendly. The floating craft was called the VIP barge, the grandmother of the Mistral, the floating boat for wealthy clients, the solid iron, the rhinoceros, and even the Bronetemkin Scoundrel.

The surface clearance of the vessel allows it to pass under the bridges of the Moscow River. You can also go to the Gulf of Finland and the coastal regions of the Azov, White, Caspian and Black Seas.

The PV09 diesel-electric ship project was developed by the Odessa Marine Engineering Bureau. On March 18, 2014, the ship was laid down at the Nobel Brothers Shipyard in Rybinsk and launched in October of the same year under the name Tanais. Then it was completed for almost two years at the Moscow Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Plant (MSSZ). "Shipyard of the Nobel Brothers" and MSSS are part of the businessman's AEON Corporation Roman Trotsenko.

Who is Roman Trotsenko
Roman Trotsenko is ranked 115th on the Russian Forbes list with a net worth of $750 million. He worked as an assistant to ex-Minister of Transport Sergei Frank (now CEO of Sovcomflot) in 1999-2000. Frank's son Gleb began his career with Trotsenko at the Moscow Shipyard. In 2009-2012, Trotsenko was president of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, whose chairman of the board of directors in those years was Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.
Owns shipping, shipbuilding, airport and development businesses. His AEON corporation includes Moscow River Shipping Company, Moscow Tourist Fleet, Moscow Yacht Port, Volgograd River Port, Southern River Port, MSSS, Nobel Brothers Shipyard, Timmerman Yachts, Novaport airports and other assets.
Roman Trotsenko is called "Sechin's man". In 2012–2013, Trotsenko was an adviser on Sechin’s offshore projects at Rosneft, and in 2012–2015 he headed Rosneft Overseas, a Swiss subsidiary of Rosneft.

Now the ship is moored in the Klyazma reservoir near the MRP yacht club in Dolgoprudny (part of the Trotsenko Yacht Port in Moscow).

Billion Timchenko

As the LRC found out and confirmed by one of the leaders of the construction of the ship, the real customer of the ship is Tanais LLC. The name of the company can be seen in the photograph of the PV09 mortgage plate.

According to the commercial register of Cyprus, Nuford Ventures Limited itself was created a few months before the registration of Tanais. Until December 2013, 100% of the shares of the Cypriot company belonged to Panamanian Brintamos Group S.A, then 50% - until December 2015. Brintamos Group S.A. associated with billionaire Gennady Timchenko: according to the database of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), in April-October 2013, she owned the offshore Tayton Enterprises Ltd., whose shares were then transferred to IPP Oil Products. IPP Oil Products  is an oil trader 50% owned by Gennady Timchenko until spring 2014.

Tanais is registered in Moscow at ul. Elektrozavodskaya, 24 building 1. In the summer of 2014, Gennady Timchenko's Volga Recources Limited fund registered three subsidiaries at the same address - Volga Group Holding, Volga Resources Holding and Volga Group.

The customer's representative at the keel-laying ceremony on March 18, 2014 was Viktor Rokhlin, who until 2014 worked as an adviser to Sovcomflot CEO Sergei Frank. His son Gleb Frank is married to Timchenko's daughter Xenia.

At the time of registration, the authorized capital of Tanais LLC was 250 thousand rubles. As the ship was being built, the size of the authorized capital increased - 700 million rubles in December 2014, then - 1.195 billion rubles in December 2015. It can be assumed that the authorized capital was increased at the expense of the property of LLC, a motor ship. In this case, the cost of the vessel is not less than 1.195 billion rubles.

lifeline of friends

TNS Holding is associated with Gennady Timchenko. The sole shareholder of the company is Anatoly Valerievich Ermolaev. He is a co-investor in a large project for the construction of a parking lot for yachts in Gelendzhik - together with Timchenko's friend Sergey Maslov, the son of the head of Russian Technologies Sergey Chemezov, the wife of the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov and the "daughter" of Rosneft. When Timchenko acquired a 40% stake in Alma Holding, which manages a large apple farm in the Krasnodar Territory, in 2014, Anatoly Ermolaev served as the company's CEO. He is also the head and co-owner of several other companies associated with the managers of Stroytransgaz (controlled by Timchenko) - Deputy General Director for Resource Provision of CJSC Stroytransgaz Alexander Akker and ex-head of the corporate legal work department of the group Andrey Shevchenko, who held senior positions in various group companies.

Co-owners of Tylon LLC are billionaires Iskandar Mahmudov and Andrey Bokarev(70% and 30% respectively). In April 2016, these 60% shares of Tanais were transferred to their other company, Loton LLC, which businessmen also own 70% to 30%.

Who are Iskandar Makhmudov and Andrey Bokarev
Iskandar Makhmudov is 21st on the Russian Forbes list with a net worth of $4.5 billion. Andrey Bokarev is 79th on the Forbes list with a net worth of $950 million.
Makhmudov is the president and main shareholder of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, Bokarev is also a shareholder of UMMC. The businessmen own Transmashholding (one of the ten largest global manufacturers of rolling stock), the Aeroexpress carrier, blocks of shares in Kuzbassrazrezugol and the Kalashnikov concern. In 2012, the partners bought 13% of the transport company Transoil, Gennady Timchenko. UMMC is implementing several joint projects with Rosneft. Andrey Bokarev was a member of the board of directors of the oil company in 2014-2015.
Makhmudov and Bokarev were the first in the Forbes ranking "Kings of the state order" for 2015 - they won state contracts for the construction of the Moscow metro for 131 billion rubles.

Timchenko's business was hit hard by Western sanctions - after the sale of foreign assets, the businessman's fortune in 2014, according to Forbes, decreased by $4.6 billion.

The Tanais, a non-core VIP cruise ship, also went on sale: partners and friends from President Putin's entourage rushed to Timchenko's aid and freed him from an expensive asset.

Immediately after the change of the main owner, the ship "Tanais" was renamed "Princess Olga".

Two Olgas

The interior design was developed by the French design studio Alberto Pinto, specializing in the decoration of houses, hotels, private jets and yachts. Among its customers are the royal family of Saudi Arabia, the ruling family of Qatar and Russian billionaires. In particular, the studio created the interiors of Viktor Rashnikov's seven-deck 140-meter yacht Ocean Victory, Alisher Usmanov's 110-meter Dilbar (2008), Sergey Galitsky's 104-meter Quantum Blue, Andrey Guryev's 82-meter Alfa Nero, Dmitry Pumpyansky's 72-meter Axioma.

St. Princess Olga was handed over to the customer in 2013, sails under the flag of the Cayman Islands and is formally owned by the local company Serlio Shipping Ltd. The name of the real owner is kept secret.

On July 31, 2016, Novaya Gazeta published an investigation entitled The Secret of Princess Olga, in which it suggested that the yacht belongs to Igor Sechin or his wife Olga. The newspaper spoke about photos from Instagram of Olga Sechina, who was vacationing on a luxury yacht, the details of which “in many ways resemble the details of St. Princess Olga. The publication also studied the geotags of photographs of Instagram users who captured the yacht in different places, and found that they coincide with the route of the St. Princess Olga.

After the material was published, Igor Sechin filed a lawsuit against the newspaper, in his lawsuit demanding that the information in the article be recognized as untrue and discrediting his honor and dignity. On October 10, the court satisfied the claim, on November 30, the Moscow City Court upheld this decision, and Novaya Gazeta published a refutation on its website.

Three comrades

It was not possible to clarify with Makhmudov and Bokarev what they think about the coincidence of the names of their ship and the scandalous yacht. We can only state that the owners of "Princess Olga" do not want to draw too much attention to her - the letters of the name of the ship moored in the yacht club "MRP" are hung with white rags.

Vasily Evstigneev, deputy director of the MSSS shipbuilding complex, told the TsUR that the ship has not yet been handed over to the customer. When asked when this would happen, he replied "in order not to jinx it, we will not guess."

After the acquisition of TNK-BP by Rosneft, Sechin became almost single-handedly managing the company with a total turnover of $144 billion, which is 2.4 times more than Belarus's GDP ($60.9 billion) and only $33 billion less than Kuwait's GDP ($176 billion)

The main helmsman of the Russian fuel and energy complex, Igor Sechin, has greatly increased his political and economic influence in just a year and a month of his absence from the government. After the acquisition of TNK-BP by Rosneft, he began to almost single-handedly manage the company with a total turnover of $144 billion. For comparison: this is 2.4 times more than the GDP of Belarus ($60.9 billion) and only $33 billion less than the GDP of Kuwait ($176). billion). Moreover, unlike the prime minister and other officials, he does not need to ask the government's permission to dispose of this money. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former owner of Yukos whose political ambitions landed him in jail, never dreamed of such wealth.

Rosneft is planning major projects in Russia and abroad: in Italy, Vietnam and South America; in particular, the construction of a Far Eastern refinery with a capacity of 30 million tons per year and a cost of up to $45 billion. For the needs of the state-owned company, it is planned to build pipelines alone in the amount of about 577 billion rubles. Rosneft's oil production is already the largest in the world today. The head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, said that, taking into account the purchase of TNK-BP, the company in 2013 will produce 210-215 million tons of oil according to various standards.

Rosneft's revenue in 2013 could reach $160 billion. Igor Sechin seems to have ensured that all this wealth remains in the hands of the state: the company will not be privatized by 2016, as the liberal wing of the government wanted, but will retain state control in it.

The actual status of the second person in the country turned out to be possible for Mr. Sechin even without official positions in the government of Dmitry Medvedev. From the "grey eminence of the Kremlin", who tried to stay in the background, Sechin turned into a public figure. Political scientists seriously consider him as a future successor to the GDP, along with the current prime minister. The level of its influence on the fuel and energy complex has not fallen at all, and the number of enemies and ill-wishers is growing exponentially. Slon made up the top "Sechin's initiatives" and their key opponents.

Fuel and Energy Complex curator: Sechin vs. Dvorkovich

As soon as Dmitry Medvedev headed the government, on the sidelines they started talking about the imminent resignation of Igor Sechin. It was whispered in the corridors of the Kremlin that they would not work together "for medical reasons: because they do not digest each other." The resignation really happened, but the influence of Igor Ivanovich in the Kremlin corridors after that only increased rather.

During the year and month of the absence of Igor Sechin in the chair of Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the fuel and energy complex, there were no direct conflicts between him and the head of government in the political field. But there is an active dive with "Medvedev's people" - henchmen of the head of government in the Kremlin offices and on the periphery. And the main "opponent" of Igor Ivanovich was the current curator of the "oil industry" in the government, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. They have diametrically different views on the development of the industry: Dvorkovich is a supporter of privatization and a liberal approach, and Sechin, in turn, is in favor of consolidating the main assets of the fuel and energy complex in the hands of the state. Being expelled from the officials and taking the post of president of Rosneft, Igor Sechin already in the summer initiated the creation of a government presidential commission for the strategic development of the fuel and energy complex and became its executive secretary. Two commissions were supposed to work in parallel: the presidential one - to solve strategic issues, and the government one - operational ones. However, in reality, most of the issues are decided by the presidential commission. And Arkady Dvorkovich acts as a "deterrent" to the unlimited ambitions of Rosneft President Igor Sechin. But so far it has been doing so with varying degrees of success. In particular, Mr. Dvorkovich advocated the systematic privatization of state assets, including energy ones. While Igor Sechin was and remains an opponent of the speedy privatization of the state assets of the fuel and energy complex. At the end of May, he said that the government needed to take measures to stimulate production, and then put up a stake in Rosneft for sale.

Now it became known that the previous plan for the privatization of state assets until 2016 has changed. According to the Vedomosti newspaper, on June 27 the government plans to consider a new privatization plan for 2014-2016. If, according to the current plan, the state should withdraw from the capital of Rosneft by 2016, now the Federal Property Management Agency wants to retain control in the company and sell only 19.5%. It is proposed to leave the companies RusHydro and Zarubezhneft under state control. According to the current program, a complete exit from their capital was expected by 2016. It is planned to withdraw from the capital of Zarubezhneft gradually - from 100% to 85% by 2016 and up to 50.1% - by 2020 (instead of selling 100% by 2016). Plans to sell until 2016 - 13.7% of Inter RAO and 3% of Transneft - remain.

The current president of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, was against including the assets of the fuel and energy complex in the privatization plan. While still Deputy Prime Minister for the Fuel and Energy Complex in 2011, he wrote to Vladimir Putin: Rosneft, having ceased to be state-owned, will not be able to work on the shelf and will pay less taxes. He also added that an objective assessment of Transneft has not been carried out, the privatization of RusHydro may adversely affect its investment projects, and Zarubezhneft is a special purpose company.

Having headed Rosneft, Sechin did not change his attitude towards privatization. At the end of May, he said that the government needs to take measures to stimulate production, and then put the company up for sale. As a result, the plans changed: apparently, the first person of the state once again listened to the position of Igor Sechin.

Gas king: Sechin vs. Miller

With the acquisition of TNK-BP by Rosneft, the big ambitions of the state-owned oil company in the gas market were born: both domestically and internationally. Igor Sechin spoke at the presidential commission on the fuel and energy complex as a lobbyist for the abolition of Gazprom's monopoly on gas exports, so far only liquefied gas. In this he was supported by the co-owners of Novatek Leonid Mikhelson and trader Gennady Timchenko. As a result, the government has already agreed on a document on the phased lifting of restrictions on LNG exports, it remains only to apply for a visa in the presidential administration. It is expected that by July the amended law "On gas exports" will work, despite the protests of the head of "Gazprom" Alexei Miller. It is no longer the very fact of the abolition of the export monopoly that is being discussed, but its order: to let independent producers only into the markets of Asia and the Pacific, to allow exporting only specific volumes under separate contracts directly with consumers, or to allow them to compete with Gazprom all over the world, including Europe.

With Russia, the situation is even simpler: Rosneft has already taken third place in the country after Gazprom and Novatek in gas production, producing 13.8 billion cubic meters of gas. m in January-April. And within seven years, he expects to “bite off” from Gazprom a fifth of the domestic blue fuel market. According to Igor Sechin, by 2020 the company plans to produce 100 billion cubic meters. m of gas per year. This is 20% of the volume of the Russian market. (Gazprom produced only 479 billion cubic meters of gas in 2012.) This volume is also planned to be achieved through the development of the shelf: Rosneft is already actively competing with Gazprom for offshore fields with large gas reserves. So far, this has resulted in the fact that the gas monopoly has defended the right to develop seven of the eight disputed areas on the Arctic shelf, but one of them will still have to be developed jointly - within the framework of the joint venture.

It helps to compete with Gazprom and build up "gas muscles" for the head of Rosneft, Vlada Rusakova, vice president of Rosneft for the development of the gas business. They say that she was “left” from Gazprom in 2012 due to disagreements with Alexei Miller. The official reason for the resignation of the former top manager of the gas monopoly is retirement. But Gazprom sources said her criticism of some of the expensive pipeline projects lobbied by Miller played a role. And the head of the gas monopoly did not tolerate this from a member of the team of his predecessor, Rem Vyakhirev. With the arrival of Ms. Rusakova at Rosneft, the topic of the shale revolution fired, which Gazprom slept through and was supported by Rosneft. Also, the idea of ​​dividing Gazprom into gas and production structures was revived from the ashes in order to increase business efficiency.

For reasons of efficiency, the gas monopoly may also raise the tax burden. Igor Sechin has already cast the bait in this direction. “We will bring almost 3 trillion rubles to the budget, and Gazprom, which is incomparably larger than us, will bring 1.5 trillion,” the Prime agency quotes Igor Sechin.

Chinese monopolist: Sechin vs. Tokarev

Former comrades-in-arms in the Kremlin camp of the security forces, the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and the president of Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev, entered into a tough confrontation over the “Chinese contract” of Rosneft. At first, the leader of the pipeline monopoly was offended that he was not invited to the Kremlin to discuss the details of an important intergovernmental agreement, which spelled out the key terms of this contract. Still, it is a serious matter - a tripling of the volume of supplies of black gold within 25-30 years. The volume of Rosneft oil towards China will increase at the peak of the contract (from 2018 to 2037) by 31 million tons per year - from the current 15 million tons to 46-49 million tons.

Nikolai Tokarev publicly criticized Mr. Sechin for refusing to pay 47.2 billion rubles for the expansion of the Skovorodino-Mohe pipeline. And then he even named the volume of Rosneft's transport "Wishlist" - 300 billion rubles. The position of the head of Transneft regarding the “Chinese pipe” was supported by the government: Deputy Prime Minister for the Fuel and Energy Complex Arkady Dvorkovich and Minister of Energy Alexander Novak spoke on his side. Igor Sechin at first frankly resisted the need for such significant spending: still, Rosneft borrowed so much from Western banks, traders and China to buy TNK-BP that now any extra capital project hurts its pocket. Where better to shift the cost to all the country's oil companies through a uniform increase in tariffs in all directions!

According to the president of Rosneft, the task of his company is only to pay for transport and see that "the tariffs are economically justified." Later, he agreed to a proposal to pay an increased tariff on the eastern direction of the Transneft pipeline system. But he did it with a caveat. According to him, "Rosneft" considers "non-transparent" the declared costs of "Transneft" for the construction of new oil pipelines and will discuss their validity. The company is "ready to set investment tariffs, but justified."

Rosneft has an alternative route for the supply of black gold to the Celestial Empire - through Kazakhstan, where companies promise cheap entry into the pipeline and significant volumes. However, these are both transit risks and the complexities of tax legislation, which entails the threat of billions in losses of income from export duties for the budget of the Russian Federation and Transneft's income from idle export capacities.

As we can see, the dispute in the Kremlin corridors between the heads of the two state-owned companies is not over yet. Vladimir Putin preferred to give a lengthy instruction "to find funds for the construction of the pipeline outside the country's budget", suggesting to look at the treasury of the Far East Development Fund. In public, both debaters have calmed down so far, but they continue to fight in the corridors. A compromise scenario is quite likely: the tariff for Rosneft in the east can be raised for 2–3 years, and then quietly distributed evenly throughout the pipeline, explaining it as a planned pipe repair or another opportunity.

Oil seller: Sechin vs. Timchenko

With the advent of Igor Sechin to the post of president of Rosneft, the state-owned company promptly changed the main trader for the sale of its oil. At the end of last year, Rosneft signed a five-year contract for the supply of 67 million tons of oil with Vitol and Glencore. The total amount of the contract, according to market estimates, was about $50 billion, with a prepayment of $10 billion (this is the amount of the loan that Vitol and Glencore jointly raised to finance the deal). Gunvor, owned by Vladimir Putin's friend Gennady Timchenko, began to rapidly lose Rosneft's trading tenders for the purchase of oil, but continued to acquire oil products. According to sources familiar with the terms of Rosneft's deal with traders, the decision to bring in Mr. Timchenko's competitors was driven by their connections in banking circles and their ability to finance the TNK-BP deal. In addition, they say that the purchase prices for Vitol and Glencore turned out to be higher than for Gunvor (the participants do not disclose the price of such contracts on the basis of trade secrets).

Later, Mr. Timchenko, in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung, said that Rosneft oil was too expensive for him, and suggested that competitors agreed to buy raw materials at inflated prices "in the hope of getting another business with Rosneft, for example, to develop general mining projects”. Prior to this, negotiations on participation in the exploration projects of Rosneft were carried out by the structures of Timchenko himself. But so far there is no news about the entry of Swiss traders into the production projects of the largest oil company.

Market participants believe that the main reason for changing traders is financial. They say that the "excommunication" of Vladimir Putin's friend Gennady Timchenko from the traders of the largest oil company became possible with the tacit approval of the head of state and precisely for economic reasons: nothing personal. The relationship between Mr. Timchenko and the “real Igor Ivanovich” (as Sechin was nicknamed in the government, and Igor Shuvalov was dubbed “fake”) has not been completely severed. They just changed direction. Gunvor and Rosneft signed an agreement to export 6 million tons of fuel oil worth up to $4 billion. They were seen together at a hockey match. And already this year they acted as a united front against the head of Gazprom in the struggle for the admission of independent producers to the export of liquefied gas. However, they act as a united front, only if they pursue common business interests, you cannot call them friends.

Total Controller: Sechin vs Rotenberg

For the first time in five years, the Accounts Chamber arranged a comprehensive audit of Gazprom, promising to pay special attention to the pipe contracts of the gas monopoly with the structures of the North European Pipe Project (SETP) of the Rotenberg brothers.

SETP provides about 70% of the supply of large-diameter pipes (LDP) it needs to Gazprom. In April last year, according to Gazeta.ru, SETP won a tender for the supply of 487.5 thousand tons of large-diameter pipes (Gazprom's total order is 780 thousand tons), offering 42.862 billion rubles, which was 0.4 % (180 million rubles) below the starting price.

The idea of ​​inspections was suggested to the head of state by Igor Sechin, many market participants say. With his suggestion, a massive “pehting” of officials of all stripes allegedly began: from State Duma deputies to top managers of state-owned companies. With a ban on having foreign accounts and the need to declare real estate and other types of property outside of Russia. Anti-monopoly officers from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) inspected SETP in connection with pipe contracts, having come to the company with a check and seizure of documents. The actions of the antimonopolists bore fruit: for the first time in the past six years, Gazprom's tender for the supply of pipes was won not by intermediaries, but by the pipe producers themselves, having signed contracts worth almost 10 billion rubles.

The original purpose of the inspection may have been to weaken Mr. Miller's influence in Gazprom. If facts of cost overruns and even corruption are revealed during this audit, more than one leading head in the gas monopoly may fly and contracts with its traders (not only SETP) will be revised. Is it by chance that the statements about the audit of Gazprom by the Accounts Chamber and the scandalous program of the television tribune Mikhail Leontiev approximately coincided in time, where he called Alexei Miller crazy and announced that he overslept the "shale revolution".

Igor Sechin himself does not have to be afraid of inspections yet: Sergei Stepashin's subordinates are going to inspect the Rosneft controlled by him only next year. In addition, unlike other officials and top managers, all sorts of accusations are made against him, but not of corruption. What the struggle of Igor Sechin will lead to at once on many fronts at the same time, time will tell.

As you know, the head of state prefers to divide the elites, not allowing any of the Kremlin figures to gain influence. about more than the boss himself. And the main criterion for “closeness to the body”, as in Italian clans, is absolute loyalty and devotion to the first person, which Igor Sechin has so far successfully proved. In this regard, the option of the “Yeltsin scenario” of the transfer of power is not ruled out, when the family of the ex-president of Russia received immunity guarantees, and the successor was able to gradually acquire full power in the country over several years. One thing is clear: the option of a "puppet successor" in the case of choosing the figure of Igor Sechin is a priori an illusion.

Ludmila Podobedova

The chief executive of Russian oil giant Rosneft had every reason to be pleased. By the time his plane touched down in the Azores for refueling, Alexei Ulyukayev, Vladimir Putin's former economy minister, who was found guilty of accepting a bribe from Sechin, had been sentenced to eight years in a strict regime penal colony and a $2.2 million fine.

The destruction of Ulyukaev marked a new peak of Sechin's influence. Everything depended on his word - a public demonstration of the influence of someone who could be criticized only by Putin, the most powerful man in the country.

Sechin, bulky, with a piercing gaze and a quiet, quiet voice, is Russia's preeminent oligarch. The oil tycoon is the epitome of a group of all-powerful businessmen whose deep political influence and control over the country's national resources depend on their proximity to President Putin. In society, they are perceived as someone who is above the law and is accountable only to the Kremlin.

Feared by businessmen and politicians alike, Sechin, 57, is the first among equals in the president's inner circle, who began as Putin's secretary and ended up heading one of the world's largest oil companies. As CEO of Rosneft, he controls an energy empire that produces more oil per day than all of Iraq and is thus the custodian of the Kremlin's most valuable corporate asset.

The Russian elite, accustomed to a stable if uneasy truce between Putin's courtiers, was taken aback by Ulyukaev's downfall and humiliation in such a public way.

Later this month, Russia will hold presidential elections. The outcome of the trial against Ulyukaev suggests a break in the power structure built during Putin's 18-year rule in the country, an authority built on playing rival clans against each other and neutralizing potential opponents that rose too quickly.

The President is about to run for a fourth and potentially final term of six years. With no sign of a succession plan, his focus is on the various factions vying for influence. Sechin has been most effective in the past, but his recent maneuvers have opened up the prospect of a loot battle among the president's followers.

More broadly, Sechin's continued rise opens the door to internal power struggles in Putin's Russia and forces that could influence the country's future.

Since Ulyukayev's arrest 16 months ago, the volume of criticism directed at Sechin has skyrocketed.

“His style of behavior is that the best form of defense is an attack. Over the past year, he was attacked many times, so he pulled out of the fight. He always prioritizes getting the job done,” said one who has known him for years.

Formation

Born in 1960 to a working-class family in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Sechin had a passion for reading from an early age. He graduated from Leningrad University with a degree in economics, studied French and Portuguese. This led to him being sent to Angola and Mozambique in the 1980s - the African frontiers of the Cold War - as a military interpreter. According to diplomats, it was after this that he began working with the KGB.

When Putin, a former KGB officer and colleague from St. Petersburg, became deputy mayor of his hometown in 1994, Sechin became his secretary, establishing himself as a man who carefully controlled visitor access, keeping detailed records of each visitor. He then followed Putin to the Kremlin when Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin. Sechin was appointed deputy head of the administration, becoming a trustee, his duties included overseeing security services and energy issues.

In 2008, Putin took over as prime minister for the next 4 years, Sechin became deputy prime minister, overseeing energy policy, allowing him to formalize his position as the ultimate arbiter of Russian oil and gas assets. Then, after Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, Sechin gained direct control of Rosneft as chief executive. He, one of Putin's close associates, was affected by US sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Today, he owes a 0.127% stake in the company, worth about $83 million, and was paid about $11 million in 2015.

Russia's first oligarchs gained control of former Soviet assets in a notoriously murky cash privatization in the 1990s as the country stepped into democracy and capitalism. But Putin's rule of Russia has been defined by a new stratum of people whose wealth and power depend on their loyalty to the president, often based on common experiences in the security services or in Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg. Few have lasted as long as Sechin.

For so long, the de facto deputy president has led political analysts to conclude that their dependence on each other is mutual, and that any attack by one against the other would be equally harmful to both.

Sechin is also the most prominent of all known siloviki from the layer of former and current Russian security officials in and around the Kremlin, whose belief in strong state control of the economy and authoritarian leadership has shaped the country's recent history and helped undermine the efforts of a rival layer of progressives, including including Ulyukaev, Kudrin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Sechin's recent string of victories has led many to speculate that the conservative, nationalist siloviki faction is gaining ground as Putin's next term approaches. Ulyukaev's imprisonment is seen as a warning to the liberal wing, which seeks to encourage the president to develop private business, reduce state intervention in the economy and improve relations with the West.

To enter the circle of Sechin, one must have no doubt that this is a man who not only cultivates power, but also knows how to use it. Last summer, the FT did a rare interview with the CEO of Rosneft at an event in St. Petersburg. As aides and security personnel fussed nervously, visitors were told to stand and wait in a show of respect until floor-to-ceiling heavy doors, similar to those in the presidential palace, swung open for his arrival.

We met two months before the start of the Ulyukaev trial, in a separate trial, Sechin fought against a certain private entrepreneur. However, he was in a calm, carefree mood. Later that evening, he will host a lavish company party and join Julio Iglesias on stage.

Even his critics give Sechin credit for rebuilding Rosneft, which, being sick of Russia's oil industry, has become its undisputed leader. But his growth was often at the expense of others. The former US ambassador to Moscow called him the “gray eminence” of the Kremlin, who sought to break the power of the oligarchs, confiscate and pool their assets in state-owned companies under the control of the security forces and limit the influence of the West.

In his interview with the FT, Sechin sought to portray himself as a student of the market economy, despite his advocacy of state control and public ownership. He dismissed suggestions that he used force and all sorts of subterfuge to take over competing businesses.

Those on his growing list of defeated enemies may not agree. In 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then the private owner of Russia's largest oil company, Yukos, was charged with tax evasion. Khodorkovsky accused Sechin of orchestrating his downfall. Sechin, who denied involvement, was nonetheless its biggest beneficiary - in 2004 he became chairman of Rosneft, which inherited most of Yukos' assets.

Then, in 2014, an investigation was carried out and the private owner of the regional oil company Bashneft, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, was arrested, his company was expropriated by the state. Two years later, in a controversial privatization process, Ulyukaev is being investigated, Rosneft acquired Bashneft.
A month later, Ulyukaev was arrested. Rosneft then sued Yevtushenkov, accusing him of buying a controlling stake in Bashneft at low prices before the nationalization was carried out. The judge ruled in favor of Rosneft, leading to an out-of-court settlement when the tycoon gave Sechin's company $1.7 billion for assets he had already been forced to hand over for free.

Sechin told the FT there was "nothing personal" about his legal battle with Yevtushenkov and the takeover of Bashneft, which gave Rosneft a 40% stake in Russia's oil production: "I can't help but defend my shareholders. And I did the right thing. I went to court." Rosneft says all assets were purchased at market prices.

But such an aggressive approach has made Sechin a lightning rod for criticism among the Moscow investment community. They are concerned that Russia's state-owned giants continue to dominate core industries. This is a $1.3 trillion risk factor for foreign investors in the economy.

Today, Rosneft accounts for 6% of world crude oil production. Worth about $65 billion, it paid more than 3 trillion rubles ($53 billion) into the state treasury in 2016. Most of the work is carried out outside of Russia.

Sechin's international ambitions over the past year have made him a powerful lever in Russia's foreign policy, puzzling analysts as to whether he is building a personal empire or operating as a pseudo-corporate shadow foreign minister.
Sechin spent the weekend after Ulyukayev was sentenced in Central America, signing cooperation agreements with Cuba and Venezuela, promoting Rosneft's interests in the region.

Under his leadership, Rosneft has thrown a $6 billion financial lifeline to Venezuela that could be subject to crippling US sanctions and provided $3.5 billion to Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq. Last year, Sechin also led a consortium to buy India's Essar Oil for $12.9 billion and orchestrated a deal to sell a 14% stake in Rosneft to China's CEFC China Energy. In addition, the company has projects in Egypt, Vietnam and Brazil.

“Now he’s spinning several cymbals at once,” one foreign policy chief in Moscow said, amid speculation that many of these ventures serve no purpose other than to advance Russia’s broader foreign policy goals.

Such ventures appear to have the backing of the Kremlin, which has long used Russia's vast resources as a geopolitical tool. The China deal has provided Sechin with widespread approval, from an administration eager to forge closer ties with Beijing to a hard time demonstrating that the sanctions have not worsened the country's ability to attract investment.

Sechin considers Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump's Secretary of State, a close friend after the two - back when Tillerson was Exxon Mobil's CEO - entered into a 2012 deal that saw Exxon and Rosneft invest $500 billion. When sanctions imposed on Sechin and Rosneft jeopardized that deal and barred him from visiting the US, Russia's response was to lament that he would no longer be able to "motorcycle with Tillerson on US roads."

Rosneft officials brag about their blue-chip international shareholders, including BP, Glencore and Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. But it is 50.1% owned by the Kremlin, and Sechin is adamant that state giants have the right to dominate the industry.

“We continue to be convinced that private companies are more efficient. And I totally disagree with that. Efficiency? How? Line your pockets or work for the good of society? In the past, when the key branches of Russian industry were privatized, the ideology, the philosophy of this was different: the search for efficient owners. There is no such problem anymore,” Sechin said.

Since Rosneft paid $55 billion in 2013 to take control of TNK-BP, then one of Russia's largest private oil companies, Sechin pursued a strategy of size at all costs, controlling $22 billion in acquisitions that inflated productivity as well as debt. At the end of September 2017, his current assets were just 52% of his current liabilities, up from 117% a year earlier (and up from 125% at BP and 118% at Shell).

This leverage and Sechin's large decision-making role remained at the center of an unusually critical report released last fall by Russia's largest state-owned lender, Sberbank. One part of the report was titled "Rosneft: We Need to Talk About Igor".

“Rosneft’s neutral stance suggests that Rosneft will cut costs, stop acquisitions, end support for Venezuela, tidy up the income statement, generate massive cash flows, and use this to reduce debt levels and reward shareholders. However, the CEO, who unilaterally sets Rosneft's development strategy, sees no need to change his path. This one-sided decision-making is unique,” ​​says the English-language version of the report, which was prepared by a London-based analyst at the bank.

A Rosneft spokesman told the FT that the report was “nothing more than an unprofessional stunt by one incompetent analyst” and that “the style and rules of management at Rosneft are practically the same as those practiced by companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Statoil and others."

However, colleagues confirm the analysts' opinion about the workaholic manager who gets up at 5 in the morning and single-handedly manages the adoption of almost all decisions, no matter how insignificant they may be.

Extremely intolerant of setbacks and setbacks, on his rare rest days, Sechin relaxes on the hunt.

“It's not always easy to work with Sechin because he works very hard and expects everyone around him to work just as hard. When he makes a decision, he follows it to the end,” Nekipelov said.

Some former and current employees of Rosneft describe a rigid bureaucratic structure, the atmosphere in which borders on a cult of personality. Sechin's company has over 296,000 employees, the largest corporate workforce in Russia.

Philosophy of fear

“The philosophy of fear pervades all layers of the company. If you really need something urgently, suffice it to say that this is an order directly from Sechin himself. Of course, you should not use such tactics often, but it always worked, ”said one of the former employees.

Like Putin, Sechin is fiercely protective of his personal life. While divorcing his first wife in 2011, he sued a local newspaper for a story about his second wife's alleged use of a luxury yacht. There were also lawsuits against the media, which posted information about the amount of his salary or the size of an exclusive Moscow mansion. The press conferences are expected to be attended on his own terms, with journalists vetted by Rosneft officials who are given a list of pre-prepared questions.

In his final court appearance in December, Ulyukaev quoted Socrates, Fidel Castro and Stalin's show trials as an example, claiming he had become a hostage to the situation, alluding to his absent accuser. Sechin ignored four subpoenas to appear as a witness.

In November 2016, Sechin invited Ulyukaev to his office on the banks of the Moskva River for an overnight meeting. There, a complex special operation was carried out, a bite operation, in which a listening device was put on Sechin, and FSB officers waited outside.

The minister was presented with gifts from Sechin — a bag of $2 million in cash, an amount that Ulyukaev had previously cited as the price of lowering his resistance to the acquisition of Bashneft. When Ulyukaev left, he was quickly detained by officers and placed under house arrest.

“All the materials collected in the case prove that I did not commit any crimes. I am the victim of a monstrous and cruel provocation. Here, the injured party first turns into a witness, and then loses this status. It has disappeared, only the smell of sulfur is in the air. false witness. Provocateurs spent a lot of effort and money to slander an innocent person, drive him into a trap, and carry out repressions. It was said a long time ago, "For whom the bell tolls." Now I want to say that this bell can ring for each of you. Now it's very easy. A bag, a basket, a badly filmed video - and you're done. Opening Pandora's box is easy, closing it is difficult,” he said.

During the battle for Bashneft, rumors spread around Moscow as to Putin's opinion on the case. Has Sechin really gone that far this time? Or did he enjoy the implicit blessing of the president for the public denunciation of one of his ministers and the financial ruin of a private entrepreneur? In September, the president broke his silence by saying he believed a "settlement deal" after the court battles between Sechin and Yevtushenkov would be good for the Russian economy. This assumption was initially ignored.

Then, at his annual press conference in December, Putin remarked: “Sechin should have appeared in court. In any case, what's the problem?" However, if Sechin felt humiliated, he did not show it. In the trial, he won without even giving evidence.

Three days after Ulyukaev was sentenced and just after flying in from meetings with Cuban and Venezuelan leaders Raul Castro and Nicolas Maduro, Sechin held a press conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. After a short speech about Rosneft's future investment plans, he quickly stood up.

“Excuse me, forgive me. I have to work,” he said, smiling at the dozen reporters who had flown out of Moscow.