Investment activity of Russian and foreign oil and gas companies. Oil and gas industry

The Russian oil and gas industry has received more foreign investment than any other. Oil and gas industry enterprises not only implement joint projects with foreign partners, but also raise funds by placing their securities on the Western financial market. It can be noted that only a few Russian enterprises and financial institutions succeed in raising funds in this way. The oil and gas industry also attracts foreign state funds and money from international financial institutions in a relatively large amount.

Foreign investors failed to put any of the Russian oil companies under direct control. This is explained by the fact that all these companies are very large enterprises of “strategic” importance. In addition, there is a direct ban on the sale of shares of a number of Russian oil companies abroad.

Due to the difficult political and economic situation in Russia, the prospects for foreign investment in the oil and gas industry remain unclear. However, international oil companies have experience in developing countries and are able to overcome the specific difficulties associated with the absence of a normal market environment and arbitrary actions of the authorities. However, in any case, independent development of large fields by foreign companies is unlikely to be possible, which would create competition for Russian oil-producing giants. Foreign capital is used by oil companies mainly to “import” modern technologies and finance their projects.

Purneftegaz plans to attract $15 million in foreign investment by selling a large block of its shares acquired on the secondary market. The raised funds are planned to be directed to the implementation of major investment projects, including the joint development of the Komsomolskoye oil field with Shell, the development and modernization of the Kharampur oil and gas field.

Societe Generale Vostok is lending to two oil producing companies, Tatneft ($280 million) and Chernogorneft ($50 million).

With the help of new technologies, the Komiarktikoil JV achieved a threefold increase in oil production from a part of the Verkhne-Vozeiskoye field. The foreign founders of the joint venture are the Canadian company Gulf-Canada and the British company British Gas. However, Gulf Canada has expressed a desire to sell its 25% stake in the JV, stressing that while the investment is technically promising, it is too risky due to ever-changing economic conditions.

On September 29, 1995, the American oil concern ARCO (ARCO) announced the acquisition of convertible bonds of NK Lukoil, which, after conversion in April 1996, will amount to 5.7% of the company's authorized capital. ARCO purchased 241,000 Lukoil bonds worth $250 million. The bonds will be exchanged for 40.9 million voting shares in April 1996, making the American concern the largest holder of Lukoil bonds.

An Anglo-American-Norwegian consortium consisting of Brown and Root, Smedvig, Petek and Instance won the tender for the right to implement the gas program in the Tomsk region. The program provides for the development of the Severo-Vasyuganskoye, Meldzhinskoye and Kazanskoye gas fields with proven reserves of about 300 billion cubic meters. gas.

Kali-Bank GmbH, a subsidiary of the German company Wintershall AG, will provide the Russian joint-stock company Gazprom with a loan of DM1 billion, Gazprom's press service told the Oil Information Agency. The loan will be used to implement the Yamal-Western Europe gas pipeline project.

RAO "Gazprom" and the German concern "BASF" signed an agreement on the allocation of 1 billion marks for the implementation of a project to supply Yamal gas to Western Europe. The funds of the German side for the development of gas fields in Yamal are allocated under the guarantees of Gazprom, and the project is being implemented without the participation of the Russian government.

The international consortium Timan Pechora Company consisting of Texaco, Exxon, Amoco, Norsk Hydro and Rosneft intends to develop the Timano-Pechora field with recoverable reserves of about 400 million tons.

The South Korean financial and industrial group "Hyundai" is showing interest in the Kovytkinskoye gas field in the Irkutsk region.

The US Eximbank and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation have reached an agreement on issuing licenses of the Central Bank for opening collateral accounts, which is actually the final step in the process of preparing for the participation of the US Eximbank in lending to Russian enterprises Nizhnevartovskneftegaz, Permneft, Tatneft, Chernogorneft and Tomskneft ".

Tempelton Investment Management, an American fund, intends to invest in Permneft and Komineft through its subdivision, Tempelton Russia.

The total cost of the project for the development of the Shtokman field in the Murmansk region, which will be carried out by the Russian company Rosshelf, is estimated at about $10-12 billion. An international tender is planned to finance the project. Some Western companies and banks showed interest in the tender, in particular American Goldman Sax and Morgan Stanley.

On December 20, 1995, the Government of the Russian Federation and Total Exploration Development Russia, a subsidiary of the French company Total, signed an agreement on the development of the Kharyaginskoye oil and gas field. Recoverable reserves are estimated at 160.4 million tons. The agreement provides for the development of the field by a French company for 33 years, which will require Total to invest $1 billion.

Story
The development of the Soviet oil industry received a powerful impetus after the oil crisis of 1973-1974. Revenues from oil exports rose sharply, and investment in the oil industry also increased. The Soviet leadership sought to maximize oil production, and this task was completed: production peaked in 1988, when production amounted to 11.8 million barrels per day.

However, by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, serious imbalances arose in the Russian oil industry. The pursuit of the plan led to an increase in the cost of production: year after year, each new ton of oil required more and more investments. In 1970-1973, the share of the oil sector in the capital investment of the entire industry was about 9 percent, and in 1986 it more than doubled to 19.5 percent. Many deposits were used irrationally, which led to their premature depletion and damage to the environment. Despite all efforts, in the late 1980s, oil production began to fall. By that time, the USSR was already firmly on the oil needle: the share of proceeds from the sale of fuel and energy resources in Soviet foreign exchange earnings reached its highest level in 1984 and amounted to 55 percent. As is known, the subsequent fall in world oil prices had catastrophic consequences for the Soviet economy.

Romance of the nineties
In the early 1990s, hopes were pinned on foreign capital for the restoration of the oil and gas industry. The famous Decree No. 1403, signed by Boris Yeltsin in November 1992, which launched the formation and privatization of Rosneft, Lukoil, Yukos and Surgutneftegaz, provided for the sale of up to 15 percent. shares of these companies to foreign investors.

Moreover, the state stopped financing the oil and gas industry, and in order to attract foreign investment, it provided joint ventures (JVs) with significant benefits, primarily the right to export 100 percent. all oil produced. At the beginning of the 1990s, there was a real boom in the JV in the Russian oil industry. By the end of the 1990s, when export preferences were abolished, JVs were producing more than 20 million tons of oil per year.

At an early stage, joint ventures were created mainly by small foreign companies, but in the early 1990s, the giants of the global oil and gas business also came to Russia. In 1994-1995, the Russian government signed three Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs). Two concerned projects on the Sakhalin shelf: Sakhalin-1 with Exxon and Sodeco and Sakhalin-2 with Shell, Mitsubishi and Mitsui. The third agreement on the development of the Kharyaginskoye field in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug was signed with the French Total.

It was in the three PSAs that the changing attitude of the state towards Western oil companies was reflected. The history of these projects is different. So, negotiations on Sakhalin-1 began back in the 1970s, when the Soviet government decided to involve Japanese companies in the development of the project. Exxon entered the project in the early 1990s. The history of Sakhalin-2 began in 1991, when the Soviet government announced a tender for the preparation of a feasibility study for the development of the Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye fields. The competition was won by a consortium of Western companies, which was later joined by Shell and Mitsubishi. Finally, the development of the Kharyaginskoye field began in 1999. Total was engaged to develop two of the six production facilities at the field. All three agreements were signed by the Russian government a few months before the adoption of the PSA Law in December 1995.

Notably, the three PSAs provided for legal protection against any subsequent legislative restrictions that could worsen the position of foreign investors. The agreements were signed on terms that placed them outside Russian jurisdiction. In the mid-1990s, such an "extraterritorial" status of projects did not bother the government Russia. Oil production was falling in the country, and there was a catastrophic lack of investment in new projects. With an average oil price in 1995 of 18 dollars. per barrel and the imperfection of tax legislation, which could change in an unpredictable way at any moment, the agreements became the only way to attract multibillion-dollar investments from Western companies. After the adoption of the PSA Law, the government selected more than 20 projects for their development, now in accordance with the PSA norms that have entered into force.

Love in cold weather
However, further implementation of the PSA regime has stalled. The government has been unable to agree, either internally or with stakeholders, on the legal and regulatory framework needed to implement projects in accordance with the law that has just been passed. And by the early 2000s, the general situation in the industry also changed: oil prices began to rise, which increased the profitability of investments in mining projects and reduced the attractiveness of PSA for foreign investors. The owners of the growing Russian companies were also not interested in attracting foreign companies on the terms of production sharing. The first such deal was the purchase of BP in 1997, 10 percent. shares of the company "SIDANCO" from the structures of Vladimir Potanin. In 2003, BP merged its Russian assets with TNK and effectively acquired about half of TNK's shares from the Alfa-Access-Renova consortium. In 2004, ConocoPhillips acquired a 7.6% stake from the state. shares of LUKOIL, and subsequently bought additional shares from Vagit Alekperov and other Russian shareholders of the company. Khodorkovsky himself in 2002-2003 was close to selling a large stake in Yukos to ExxonMobil, but for obvious reasons the deal did not take place.

It is worth noting that in the early 2000s, some Western companies were ready to directly invest in oil and gas projects in Russia without PSA, that is, under the standard tax regime, and even without major Russian partners. Thus, in the mid-1990s, Shell expected to develop the Salymskoye field in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug on the terms of a PSA, but later agreed to start working under the normal tax regime and made its first investments in 2004. In 2003, the American company Marathon began operating in Western Siberia, which acquired the Khanty-Mansiysk Oil Corporation.

Error correction
As oil prices soared and Western companies became more interested in investing in the Russian oil sector, there was growing dissatisfaction in the government with respect to the three PSAs signed in the first half of the 1990s. The main complaints were related to the fact that the projects were becoming more and more costly. Shell, the largest shareholder of Sakhalin-2, suffered the most from state pressure on PSA operators. In 2005 and 2006, the project was literally bombarded with various inspections, which revealed not only overestimation of costs, but also a violation of environmental legislation. The then head of Rosprirodnadzor, Oleg Mitvol, estimated the environmental damage from Shell's activities on Sakhalin at $50 billion, an amount comparable to the damage from Hurricane Katrina. At the end of 2006, the shareholders of Sakhalin-2 sold 50 percent. plus one share in the company operator of the project to Gazprom, after which all environmental claims were removed.

The development of the Kharyaginskoye field by Total was also accompanied by constant conflict with state structures. In the early 2000s, the tax authorities challenged Total's costs every year and refused to approve the cost estimates for the project. The French company in 2003 even filed a lawsuit against the Russian government in the Stockholm Arbitration, demanding reimbursement of the costs incurred by it. The conflict continued until Total and another foreign participant in the project, Statoil, agreed in 2009 to transfer 20 percent. in the project of the state "Zarubezhneft".

In order to sell gas to end consumers in Russia, ExxonMobil must supply them with gas through pipelines controlled by Gazprom. Access to these pipes is also essential for a US company if it wants to sell its gas outside of Russia, to China or Korea. Over the past few years, ExxonMobil and Gazprom have been unable to agree on the price of gas from Sakhalin-1. Nevertheless, ExxonMobil succeeded in the main preservation of control over the project. One can only guess what arguments convinced the Russian leadership to abandon attempts to use force on ExxonMobil, similar to what was carried out against Sakhalin-2.

One way or another, the development of PSA in Russia has stalled. To date, the share of PSA operators accounts for only 3.2 percent. of total oil production and 3.6 percent. of the total gas production in Russia. This production volume is comparable to that of an average Russian company such as Bashneft or RussNeft. PSA projects in Russia play a much more modest role than in resource-rich CIS countries such as Kazakhstan and most non-CIS countries where production sharing is applied.

Oil and gas production from Sakhalin projects will grow, but the persistent allergy to PSA among the Russian political leadership is too strongly associated with the loss of state control in the "dashing nineties." In 2008, speaking of the PSA, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia would not allow "the colonial use of its resources." Foreign companies are invited to work in Russia under the standard tax regime. The trouble is that the development of the oil and gas industry under this regime has no prospects.

tax dead end
Producers in Russia pay the same taxes as other companies on value added, profits, property, and social contributions. In addition, oil companies pay a mineral extraction tax (MET) and, if they export their oil, an export duty. The MET is calculated according to a formula approved in 2002: the tax amount depends on the current oil price and the ruble/dollar exchange rate. At the price of the Urals brand of 100 dollars. per barrel and the rate of 29 rubles per dollar, the producer must pay the state about 18 dollars. from every barrel of oil produced. However, this tax is not as terrible for oil companies as the export duty, which is calculated on a progressive scale: the higher the price of oil, the higher the duty rate. Since August 2004, the export duty rate for oil prices above $25. per barrel is 65 percent.

Thus, if other taxes are taken into account, at high oil prices, the tax burden on exporters exceeds 90 percent. The current tax system was established in the middle of the 2000s, when the task was to withdraw excess profits from oil companies and fill the Stabilization Fund. The high tax burden did not bankrupt the oil companies, but made investments in new fields unprofitable. It is significant that large Russian companies such as LUKOIL and TNK-BP have stepped up their search for projects outside of Russia since the early 2000s, largely due to the unfavorable tax climate.

In recent years, the government has tried to regulate the tax regime, for example, by setting preferential MET rates for old depleted fields. Since October 2011, the marginal rate of export duty on oil has been reduced from 65 to 60 percent, while at the same time, export duties on oil products have been significantly increased. Despite these cosmetic indulgences, the development of large new projects under the current tax regime remains unprofitable. Moreover, the important oil projects that have been carried out in Russia in recent years have become possible only thanks to the political influence of companies that have secured special tax breaks for themselves. These projects include the Filanovsky field in the northern Caspian, which is being developed by LUKOIL, and the Vankor field, Rosneft's largest project in Eastern Siberia; both companies received from the state the right, secured by special government orders, not to pay export duties on oil from these projects at the initial stage of their development. It should be noted that Rosneft's benefits for the Vankor field expired in May 2011 and were not extended.

arctic craze
In recent years, against the backdrop of a tightening of the tax regime, the state began to show a growing interest in the development of new promising oil and gas areas, primarily on the Arctic shelf. The development of Arctic projects is possible only with the participation of foreign companies; the only such project implemented by Gazprom, the development of the Prirazlomnoye field on the shelf of the Pechora Sea, has shown in practice that Russian companies cannot move Arctic projects without foreigners. The long-suffering project stretched for 16 years. The platform for the development of the field was built at the defense enterprises of the north of Russia, primarily at the Sevmash plant. At the same time, the field development scheme was revised several times, and the cost of the project was constantly growing. As a result, it many times exceeded the initial calculations and amounted to almost 4 billion dollars, which casts doubt on the payback of the project. Characteristically, Gazprom Neft Shelf, the division of Gazprom that is developing Prirazlomnoye, still advocates using the PSA regime for the project.

So, the development of the Arctic shelf is possible only in partnership with foreign, primarily Western, companies that have the necessary technological and financial resources. At the end of the "zero" years, the Russian leadership decided to start full-scale development of the Arctic. The following scheme was chosen: the government issues licenses to state-owned companies Gazprom and Rosneft, which then attract foreign partners to develop fields, transferring minority stakes to them. Issuing licenses proved to be a simple matter. Already in 2010, the licensing agency Rosnedra under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology issued six licenses for the development of offshore fields to Rosneft and two to Gazprom. This year, Rosnedra plans to issue about 15 more licenses, and a total of several dozen will be issued. At the same time, a more difficult task, the development of a clear strategy for the development of the shelf and the tax regime, is mired in bureaucracy.

The government has not yet approved the state program for the development of the shelf. The division of roles between state-owned companies remains unclear: initially it was assumed that Gazprom and Rosneft would create a joint company as an operator of offshore projects, then they would develop fields separately: Rosneft oil, Gazprom gas. The division of "spheres of influence" between state-owned companies, however, did not take place. Firstly, many license areas are unexplored, so it is impossible to definitively divide them into oil and gas. Secondly, in the absence of clear political guidelines, Rosneft and Gazprom began to compete for new offshore licenses, while Rosneft lays claim to gas-bearing areas in the Barents Sea.

Partnership with many unknowns
The result is a paradoxical situation. For the first time since the mid-1990s, the state is interested in attracting foreign oil and gas companies to projects in Russia. However, since there is no clear strategy and tax regime, foreigners are invited not only to deal with competing state-owned companies, but also to enter projects whose profitability cannot be calculated. At the same time, state-owned companies prefer not to invest their own funds in the exploration of licensed areas, offering foreign partners to pay themselves for the pleasure of working on the Russian shelf. In other words, the following offer is made to foreign companies: you take on the technological and financial risks of the project, and if you are lucky and you find oil or gas, then we will agree on a tax regime. And if they don’t find it, it means that they were unlucky and the funds were wasted.

Some foreign companies seem ready to start working even under such conditions. Over the past year, Rosneft has signed several offshore development agreements: with Chevron and ExxonMobil for areas in the Black Sea, with BP for areas in the Kara Sea, and with ExxonMobil for the same areas. However, the signed agreements do not mean that Western companies intend to seriously invest in offshore projects. Rather, they seek to “stake out” their participation in these projects and, spending a minimum of money, agree on the conditions for further work. In addition, two of the three agreements signed by Rosneft have already expired: Chevron left the project to study Shatsky Shaft in the Black Sea, citing unfavorable geological factors, and the Rosneft deal with BP was torpedoed by the Russian partners of the British company.

The deal with ExxonMobil, announced at the end of August 2011, involves seismic exploration and drilling of exploration wells in the Kara Sea. However, the tax regime for further development of fields will be determined in the future, and until then the American company is unlikely to invest in the project amounts close to those announced by representatives of Rosneft and the Russian government. Rosneft is now actively looking for additional offshore exploration and development partners and is likely to find them, but the lack of a clear tax regime will greatly complicate the implementation of these projects.

A clear example of these difficulties is the project to develop the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. This giant field, located 600 kilometers from the coast, was discovered in 1988. In the 1990s, it was controlled by joint ventures between Gazprom and Rosneft; in 2004, Rosneft ceded its share in the project to Gazprom. Sluggish negotiations with potential foreign partners interested in the development of Shtokman have continued since the early 1990s. In the mid-2000s, Gazprom intensified the negotiation process with Western companies, but the Russian gas monopoly was very picky when choosing partners, demanding the most favorable conditions for itself. In 2006, Gazprom said that the proposals received from Western companies did not satisfy him. It was decided to leave control over the field in the hands of Gazprom, and to attract Western companies exclusively as contractors.

As a result of a long trade, which took place with the participation of top officials of the state, in 2007 Gazprom signed agreements with two contractors, Statoil and Total, which received 24% respectively. and 25 per cent. in the project operator. However, the development of the deposit has not yet begun. In 2008, the global financial crisis broke out, which led to a sharp decline in gas demand in Europe. Meanwhile, in the United States, another potential consumer of gas from Shtokman, shale gas production has risen sharply and gas purchases from abroad have decreased. Thus, the gas from the Shtokman field, inevitably expensive, turned out to be uncompetitive even before it began to be produced.

After several years of negotiations with Western companies, in the summer of 2011 the government finally decided to give the operator of the field property tax breaks, but this belated decision alone cannot ensure the profitability of the Shtokman project. Unless additional and larger tax incentives are provided, an investment decision on the field is unlikely to be made. Thus, the unfavorable tax regime remains one of the main factors hindering the start of field development.

At the same time, neither Gazprom nor its Western partners can afford to officially abandon the project: too much effort has been spent on reaching existing agreements, and, especially for Gazprom, keeping Shtokman afloat is a matter of prestige. Instead, companies regularly state that they are still committed to the project, but the investment decision and, accordingly, the start of production is periodically delayed by a year or two.

They can if they want
Although the Shtokman project has been shelved, France's Total recently acquired a 20 percent stake in another major gas project. The project to develop the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field and build a plant for the production of liquefied natural gas is known as Yamal LNG. This project demonstrates that in certain circumstances the government is able to provide oil and gas companies with the most favorable treatment in a short time, including on tax issues.

The Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field is located in the north of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In the late 2000s, Yamal LNG, which owns the license for the field, was resold several times and in 2009 came under the control of NOVATEK, Russia's largest private gas company.

Despite the fact that in the official strategy of Gazprom, the development of the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field was planned for the 2020s, Novatek decided to speed up the project. The launch of the first stage of the LNG plant with a capacity of 5.5 million tons per year is planned to be carried out in 2016, and two more stages in 2017 and 2018. At the same time, the reaction of the state to the project of a private company differed sharply from the usual bureaucratic red tape. Over the past year, the Yamal LNG project has received unprecedented government support. The government has promised the private company Novatek a 12-year MET tax break. In recent competitions organized by Rosnedra, Novatek has received licenses for several large fields in Yamal, thereby increasing the resource base of the project. In addition, Novatek may receive state subsidies for the purchase of LNG tankers for the development of these fields. The crown of generosity was the provision of an export channel to Novatek, in fact, bypassing Gazprom.

State support for Novatek chronologically coincided with the appearance of Gennady Timchenko, a co-owner of the Gunvor oil trader and an acquaintance of Vladimir Putin, among its shareholders. Timchenko himself denies any personal reason for his success in the Russian commodity business. However, after Timchenko's purchase of a stake in Novatek in 2009, according to press reports, now Timchenko and Leonid Mikhelson, the company's chairman of the board, own a block of its shares close to a controlling 10, the share price has increased several times. Unprecedented hitherto government support for a private gas producer has obviously been reflected in the rapid growth of the company's value.

Strategy and risk
For twenty years, foreign companies in Russia have experienced both state love and state wrath. The rise of the oligarchs in the 1990s put an end to the PSA regime, but opened the way for Western companies that wanted to invest in the capital of Russian oil and gas structures. The rise of state capitalism in the Putin era forced foreign companies to seek partnerships with Rosneft and Gazprom. But achieving this goal proved to be difficult not only because of the ambitions of Russian state-owned companies, but also because of the excessive tax pressure on the oil industry. At the end of the 2000s, the political cycle in the oil and gas sector went into a second round. As in the 1990s, those private companies whose owners have enlisted the support of state leaders are in the best position.

Under these conditions, there are two possibilities for foreign companies. The first is the development of cooperation with Gazprom and Rosneft. In the foreseeable future, these two state-owned companies will be able to cooperate with foreigners in megaprojects, such as the development of the Arctic shelf. In exchange, state-owned companies will demand investments, technologies, and assets outside of Russia. In addition, foreign companies will be expected to assist, primarily Gazprom, in the implementation of its pipeline projects in Europe. For example, it seems likely that Germany's Wintershall and Italy's Eni entered into Gazprom's South Stream project in large part to facilitate their access to fields in Russia.

The second opportunity for foreign companies is cooperation with private Russian companies. As recent practice shows, it is companies like Novatek that can achieve tax preferences for their projects faster and more efficiently than the seemingly almighty Gazprom. Total has joined two significant gas projects, Shtokman in partnership with Gazprom and Yamal LNG in cooperation with Novatek. It is likely that Yamal LNG will be sold faster than Shtokman, in any case, over the past year, Novatek has received unprecedented state support, and Shtokman has stood still.

The other side of the coin in cooperation with private companies is the dependence on their owners, or rather, on their political connections, which allow them to woo the state. There have been many ups and downs in the history of the Russian oil and gas sector over the past 20 years. Yukos, the country's largest private oil and gas company, was liquidated in just two years. Structures that worked closely with Gazprom in the 1990s and received assets from the gas monopoly on favorable terms, for example, Itera and Stroytransgaz, lost support in the 2000s and were forced to return most of the assets to Gazprom . More recently, Mikhail Gutseriev, who created from scratch one of the largest oil companies, RussNeft, was prosecuted and emigrated to London in 2007, selling RussNeft to the structures of Oleg Deripaska. But by the middle of 2010, all charges against Gutseriev were dropped, he arrived in Russia and, as if nothing had happened, returned to the leadership of RussNeft.

Just like 10-15 years ago, foreign companies are forced to rely on the political influence of their partners. Cooperation with state-owned companies is more politically secure and opens access to significant projects, but the implementation of these projects can be delayed for years. Betting on private companies, whose owners can take advantage of their closeness to the top political leadership, promises momentary favor from the state, but does not guarantee long-term support for projects, especially in the event of a change in political leadership or the exit of their Russian shareholders from projects.

In accordance with the current legislation, the volume of state guarantees issued as collateral for external borrowings must be approved by the federal law on the budget. Within its framework, the volumes of state guarantees for the implementation of PSA projects, provided by the future state share of oil in these projects, can be summed up and put up as a separate line.

Today, Russian legislation requires the approval of each PSA project by a separate federal law. This means that when forming the budget for the next year, it is enough to sum up the volumes of state shares of profit oil for this year according to the ratified agreements, without subjecting them to a separate discussion as part of the budget adoption procedure. On the other hand (there is a blessing in disguise), the ratification of individual projects (a requirement introduced into the legislation on PSA, which significantly “weighed” the procedure for an investor to conclude an agreement with the state for each project) provides investors with maximum legal protection in the conditions of high instability of the Russian economy in transition and thereby significantly reduces the risk and increases the long-term financial rating of state guarantees issued on the basis of the PSA.

True, in our opinion, on one condition - that state guarantees issued on the basis of a specific PSA project are used for the needs of project financing of this particular project. This approach will make it possible to remove these state guarantees from the zone of sovereign risk and significantly reduce the cost of borrowing. If the state guarantees issued on the basis of a specific PSA project are used not only within this project, but also in the interests of other projects, that is, they are redistributed through the current budget, they will immediately fall under sovereign risk, which will significantly increase the cost of borrowing and put under doubt the expediency of applying the proposed scheme as a whole.

This approach will make it possible to break the generally accepted pattern, traditional for stable developing (non-transitional) economies, according to which the financial rating of the project cannot be higher than the rating of the company that implements it, which in turn cannot be higher than the financial rating of the parent and / or host country where this project is being carried out.

In world practice, there is the only example known to us when the financial rating of a project exceeds the financial rating of the country in which it is implemented - the Qatargas project in Qatar (natural gas production at the Severnoye field, located on the border with Iran in the Persian Gulf, and its liquefaction at the LNG plant located on the northern tip of the peninsula). The proposed approach will make it possible to ensure high financial ratings of a new type of state guarantees issued under Russian PSA projects, regardless of the financial rating of Russia itself, to expand the opportunities for Russian companies to attract project financing to oil and gas projects developed under PSA conditions and to reduce the price of the borrowed capital required for them.

CONCLUSION

Today, the state of affairs in world oil production is somewhat different than a decade ago. More advanced technologies for the exploration and production of hydrocarbon raw materials have made it possible to open up new areas in the world. For example, a deep sea mining area off the west coast of Africa. Regions such as Saudi Arabia are becoming more open to international companies, where you can extract a barrel of quality oil for one or two dollars and from where it is easy to transport it to export markets. For producing countries, the world of oil and gas was much more competitive in 2001 than it was in 1991. In addition, the experience of foreign companies in Russia also did not meet their expectations in the early 1990s.

While many of the joint ventures that began 10 years ago have been technically successful, very few of them have generated a sufficient return on investment, if at all.

The main problems that foreign investors had to face in Russia are well known. These are, first of all, an imperfect legislative base, the unpredictability of the tax regime and excessive bureaucratic control.

Can the Russian oil and gas complex count on large-scale foreign investment in the future? In my opinion, if large investments by foreign companies are directed to the Russian fuel and energy industry, then this will happen only on the basis of production sharing legislation.

This does not mean that PSA is a panacea. And the reason is not that production sharing supposedly implies "tax breaks" or other privileges: experts are well aware that when oil prices are high, oil companies can earn a lot more under the licensing system. The real reason why foreign companies are committed to working on PSA terms is that production sharing can add to their projects that essential component that has been missing in Russia in recent years - the stability and predictability of investment conditions.

This is not the same as profit predictability. When sharing production, the investor takes on geological, technical and financial risks. Under these conditions, of course, it is not necessary to talk about guaranteed profits.

However, with the legal and tax stability that production sharing can provide, companies are able to make long-term plans. This means that the profitability of a particular project depends more on the efficiency of the company (and, of course, on one external factor that none of us can control - oil prices) than on good relations with government officials.

Very often, the product section is associated with foreign companies. In fact, of the 22 fields approved for production sharing, only 9 have foreign investors. All these 9 fields also have Russian investors.

Therefore, we can confidently say that Russian companies will really benefit from the production sharing regime. There are both direct and indirect benefits.

The most direct benefit is the access to finance that production sharing will bring. The predictability, stability and openness of production sharing regimes is what makes them attractive not only to foreign companies, but also to foreign banks and other financial institutions that can provide most of the capital for projects. Let me remind you that many of the PSA projects will require from $10 billion to $15 billion in investments.

Banks are just as interested in an attractive and competitive production sharing regime as oil companies. Bankers usually want to be sure that they will recoup their investments and make a profit.

If the Russian production sharing regime is not competitive, then not only will foreign companies not invest, but banks will not finance projects of both foreign and Russian companies.

One of the characteristics of the global oil and gas industry is the fact that companies that are usually competitors work on large projects together. Companies benefit from pooling resources in several ways: risk is shared, and partners can learn from each other. Russian companies will also benefit from the exchange of technology and management skills, which will bring joint work with foreign companies in PSA projects. And vice versa. There are no obstacles for joint work to become a widespread practice in Russia. A successful partnership in Russia could lead to joint work in other countries.

Another indirect benefit of production sharing transparency is in the area of ​​experience. If we look at the market value of the shares of Russian oil companies in relation to the reserves they have, we will see that they are valued significantly lower than the shares of foreign companies.

Why is this happening? One of the main reasons is the lack of transparency and good corporate governance in Russia. At the same time, the market reacts positively to changes for the better in this area. This is also confirmed by the example of the Yukos company, which over the past 4 years has managed to achieve a 40-fold increase in the market price of its shares.

The market is also able to respond positively to the steps taken by the government, which decided to show that Russia is moving towards a more transparent investment regime.

One of the immediate consequences of the completion of the production sharing regime would be greater investment confidence that Russia is on the right track and that large untapped deposits can eventually be developed - either through cooperation between Russian and foreign companies, or by Russian companies with foreign financing. These factors would increase the market value of Russian companies.

So production sharing is an important issue not only for foreign companies in Russia. This is the best and, in the foreseeable future, the only way to attract the capital and technology needed to develop major new fields in Russia.

Clearly, production sharing is an issue that Russian and foreign companies can work on together. The creation in Russia of an understandable, stable, predictable, open, favorable and competitive investment regime is in our common interest. There are currently no such conditions. Therefore, there were no investments in Russia under the terms of production sharing, except for PSA projects concluded before the Federal Law "On PSA".

But this block of laws has its advantages even in the current version, which is not the most effective for investors. However, there are also limitations on its use. The "resource" quota of deposits for development on the terms of the PSA (30% of the country's proven reserves) has already been practically exhausted. The procedure for obtaining the right to use subsoil on the terms of the PSA is excessively complex and bureaucratic. Obtaining all permits and visas required for PSA projects is time-consuming and therefore costly. This reduces the competitiveness of all companies operating in Russia. Investors support the efforts of the Government of the Russian Federation to establish a "single window" for the PSA in order to reduce bureaucratic red tape.

If we talk about other sectors of the economy (manufacturing, services), then the PSA cannot be applied here at all. The economic and investment legislation of the country needs progressive development not only through the PSA

To increase the investment attractiveness and competitiveness of the oil and gas industry, it is necessary to:

Direct efforts to increase the resource base of the oil and gas sector of the fuel and energy complex, ensure sufficient publicity regarding the state of this base;

Create a centralized data bank of domestic progressive types of equipment and technologies that can be purchased and used by investors;

Develop a program for a gradual increase in the investment attractiveness of the Russian oil and gas complex, including measures to strengthen the stock market, which should become an effective mechanism for mobilizing investments, directing them to the most promising oil and gas development projects and the most effective business structures. Too much time and effort has already been spent on regulations. The time has come to finalize them (in a form that would ensure the creation of an attractive investment regime) and move on.

With Russia's vast distances and the discrepancy between domestic and world prices, oil transportation will always be an important issue. But no private company will build a multibillion-dollar pipeline unless it is certain that it will have free access to the pipeline to transport its products. Therefore, the draft Law "On Main Pipelines" should provide for pipelines that are laid by private companies and therefore owned and operated by them.

Finally, for production sharing agreements, it is necessary to refine the management system.

In conclusion, the following conclusions can be drawn.

Oil and gas complex is and, undoubtedly, will remain the most important part of the Russian economy, providing a quarter of the cost of industrial production, a third of budget revenues and about half of all foreign exchange earnings even in the current crisis. It remains the basis of the nation's life support, a solid foundation for the country's economic security, and an important source of foreign debt repayment.

The solution of the oil and gas complex problems is closely connected with the solution of the problems of the entire Russian economy. The situation in the oil and gas complex is deteriorating - the socio-economic situation of the whole country is deteriorating. Therefore, the problems of the oil and gas complex should be considered as a priority, along with the problems of the agro-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, transport and communications.

The role of the oil and gas complex in the coming years will not only not decrease, it will be consistently increased in order to provide Russia with the opportunity to restore its overall economic potential, carry out the necessary structural restructuring of the entire economy, and provide Russians with a new quality of life.

OGC will continue to play a critical role in Russia's foreign economic strategy. This, above all, will relate to the opportunities for obtaining export earnings, which are so necessary for the implementation of reforms. NGK and its potential opportunities will continue to act as the main guarantor in our policy of obtaining long-term loans and credits in non-CIS countries. Equally important is the role of the fuel and energy complex in promoting the development of integration of other CIS countries with Russia on the basis of the continued interest of these countries in the supply of Russian fuel and energy products. The "energy factor" is able to contribute to a more active policy of Russia in its relations with the EU, the USA, Japan and other countries.

Oil and gas complex problems are not and will not be of an opportunistic nature, they are long-term and are solved only in a general connection with the problems of the entire economic development of Russia. For this reason, constant coordination in the implementation of the ES-2020 and Strategy-2010 programs is extremely important.

The amount of investment that needs to be attracted to the oil and gas complex of Russia to solve the priority tasks of the economic strategy of Russia is so large that it makes no sense to argue about the priority of certain sources of investment. In this field, there is enough space for everyone - both private domestic structures, and the state, and foreign entrepreneurs. The question is how and where to get investment funds.

The mobilization of large investments for the needs of the further development of the oil and gas complex can be carried out only in the event of a significant change in the investment climate for both domestic and foreign capital.

Prospects for the development of the global oil and gas market are favorable for increasing investment in the Russian oil and gas sector.

Russia has sufficient investment attractiveness, but significant efforts are needed to further increase it

In conclusion, I want to note that foreign oil companies see huge potential in Russia. That's why they're still here - despite the problems they encounter along the way. Nevertheless, in order to create conditions for attracting long-term investments in the Russian oil and gas complex, much work still needs to be done.

The creation of these conditions is in the common interests of both Russian and foreign oil and gas companies.

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The tax on the extraction of minerals is calculated in the manner prescribed by Chapter 26 "Tax on the extraction of minerals" of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. However, there are some changes in the procedure for calculating this tax. Thus, in accordance with Federal Law No. 102-FZ of August 18, 2004, from January 1, 2005, the base tax rate for oil is applied in the amount of 419 rubles. per ton (instead of the previous rate of 347 rubles). In this case, the specified tax rate is multiplied by a coefficient that characterizes the dynamics of world oil prices (Kc), and by a coefficient that characterizes the degree of depletion of a particular subsoil area (Cb).

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15 - the minimum price for 1 barrel of oil used in the formula for calculating the fee rate (constant value), USD;

29.0 - the exchange rate of the US dollar against the Russian ruble (constant value used in the denominator of the formula), rub.

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