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State Purchases Site in 2010
The Economic Development Ministry will launch a web site in January 2010 that will function as a clearing house for state and municipal purchases, Deputy Minister Anna Popova said Thursday at a State Duma session, Itar-Tass reported.
These electronic auctions are a "key and priority direction of work for the ministry," Popova said. (MT)
AvtoVAZ's Anti-Crisis Plan
Struggling carmaker approved an anti-crisis plan Thursday that aims to cut costs and make the company profitable again.
AvtoVAZ will raise cash flow by selling 600 million rubles ($19 million) worth of components and 70,000 cars from its inventory. The company wants to reduce component costs by 10 percent by the end of the year.
The company also plans to save 2 billion rubles on materials and cut management salaries by 20 percent. (MT)
$35Bln in Weapons Exports
Russia signed weapons and hardware export contracts that are valued at $35 billion, said Alexander Fomin, deputy head of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, RIA-Novosti reported.
Rosoboronexport, the state-run arms trader, will supply arms and hardware worth $27 billion. The balance will be provided by the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation. (Bloomberg)
Reserves Rise $6.1Bln
Russia's international reserves rose $6.1 billion last week as the Central Bank bought foreign currency to slow the ruble's gains after the price of Urals crude oil, the country's key export, rose as high as $57.5 per barrel, the Central Bank said Thursday.
The world's third-largest reserves holdings advanced to $391.3 billion in the week that ended May 15 after falling $700 million in the previous week to $385.2 billion. (Bloomberg)
Sakhalin-2 Loses $1.2Bln
Gazprom's Sakhalin-2 project lost more than $1.2 billion because of a delay in starting liquefied natural gas deliveries, Vedomosti reported, citing two sources close to the company.
Project operator Sakhalin Energy was forced to buy LNG on the spot market to meet contracts with clients in Japan, the newspaper said. The opening of Russia's first LNG plant, built by partner Royal Dutch Shell, was pushed back from September 2008 to February 2009, Vedomosti reported. (Bloomberg)
OGK-2 Output Falls 14%
OGK-2 said first-quarter electricity production fell 14 percent as demand dropped.
Output slipped to 12.1 billion kilowatt hours in the three months through March 31, the company said Thursday, without providing a figure for the year-earlier period. (Bloomberg)
LNG Demand Seen Down
Sakhalin Energy Investment expects global demand for liquefied natural gas to increase at an annual rate of 6 percent to 8 percent on average "for the next few years."
Global LNG demand will rise as much as four times more than the forecast demand for gas, Sakhalin Energy CEO Ian Craig said in a report on Royal Dutch Shell's web site. (Bloomberg)
