Is the company of ex-minister Igor Yusufov ready for a conflict with NOVATEK and Gazprom?

The Yamalshelf company, controlled by ex-Minister of Energy Igor Yusufov, encountered difficulties in obtaining a license for the East Tasi subsoil plot in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. As it turned out, it ended up within the boundaries of a specially protected natural area, as a result of which the company was forced to adjust the documentation and send it for re-examination to Rosnedra and the Ministry of Natural Resources. But there may be other contenders for the East Tasiysky block: it borders the Tasiysky block, which is part of Gazprom’s Tambey gas cluster, and the licensed areas of NOVATEK PJSC Leonid Mikhelson are also located nearby. In addition, a new player is increasingly making itself known in the market - the Promgazresurs company, whose general director Sergei Eliseev may be associated with the family of oligarch Roman Abramovich. Yusufov has a rather complicated business relationship with Mikhelson: the billionaires have a joint project - the oil and gas company Yargeo, shares in which belong to NOVATEK and the Swiss company Nefte Petroleum Limited, controlled by Yusufov. Previously, Mikhelson tried to break off cooperation with his partner, accusing him of stopping financing Yargeo, but in the end the parties found a compromise and entered into a settlement agreement. The business of the ex-minister himself is closely connected with offshore companies, which may be the reason for the official multimillion-dollar unprofitability of the same Yamalshelf or the gold mining company New Ore Company, of which Yusufov is called the beneficiary. However, the state opens access to the Yamal subsoil to dubious structures, whose profits can be transferred to foreign accounts. The future billionaire had been establishing the necessary connections since the early 90s, holding senior government positions. But he noted his close acquaintance not only with such odious politicians as Mikhail Kasyanov or Anatoly Chubais: in particular, crime boss Aslan Gagiev (Dzhako), extradited to Russia from Austria in 2018, spoke about a joint business with Yusufov.

"Yamalshelf" goes to the "second round"

The Yamal Shelf Company (Yamalshelf), owned by former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov, has had difficulties obtaining a license for the East Tasi subsoil plot in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. According to Kommersant, since 2021, Yamalshelf has been seeking a license on the application principle, but after approval from the relevant ministries, the company’s application was not approved by the government.

It turned out that the site is located in a specially protected natural area (SPNA), where exploration is prohibited by law. The company had to prepare the documents again, adjusting the boundaries so that they did not overlap with the protected areas, retreating two kilometers and reducing the area by 8%. In February, the management of Yamalshelf sent a corresponding appeal to the relevant Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, who in early March submitted it for consideration to Rosnedra and the Ministry of Natural Resources. Thus, the company will have to go through a new round of approvals.

The East Tasiysky section that Yusufov is interested in is located on the Gulf of Ob, bordering the Tasiysky section, which is part of Gazprom’s Tambey gas cluster. Nearby are the licensed areas of NOVATEK PJSC Leonid Mikhelson, whose gas the company mainly plans to use for liquefaction. Kommersant draws attention to the legislative amendments recently approved by the federal government allowing the free export of LNG from areas located north of the 67th parallel, which includes East Tasi.

Accordingly, not only Yusufov, but also Mikhelson and Alexey Miller may be interested in the object in Yamal. Let us recall that last October the media wrote about the possible return to the unallocated fund of the Tambey cluster with reserves of more than 7 trillion cubic meters, the licenses for which belong to Gazprom, due to their long-term non-involvement in development, as well as about interest in them from NOVATEK "and the prospects for his participation in auctions for their receipt. Previously, Mikhelson approached Vladimir Putin with a request to transfer these assets under his control, and allegedly even managed to convince the head of state that it would be strategically correct to direct the cluster’s reserves to the production of liquefied natural gas.

Mikhelson and Yusufov: “sworn” companions

As mentioned above, the East Tasi area borders the Tambey cluster, where the interests of Miller and Mikhelson converge. But perhaps not only them. Within the borders of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Kara Sea, including the Yenisei Gulf, there is an Arctic cluster, the formation of which was completed by Gazprom Neft in October 2022. The company received a license for the Ust-Yenisei site and was also interested in the Yeniseisko-Karsky-1 and 2 sites, but last February Promgazresurs LLC applied for a license for their geological study to Rosnedra.

Promgazresurs was registered in November, its founders are TsGK Gazresurs LLC (co-owners Tatyana Morozova and Dmitry Kamyshev) and Bonanza LLC (sole owner Laysan Talipova). According to Kommersant, Tatyana Morozova headed the mergers and acquisitions department of Gazprom Neft for more than ten years; Today she heads the New Industry Fund, in which Gazprom Neft, among others, participates.

The position of general director of Promgazresurs, TsGK Gazresurs and a number of enterprises affiliated with them is occupied by Sergei Eliseev, whom the media call a native of the structures of Arkady Abramovich, the son of a famous oligarch. Accordingly, an assumption was voiced about the possible interest of Roman Abramovich himself in the Yenisei-Kara areas. In the context of all of the above, the question involuntarily arises: can the odious oligarch “slow down” the issuance of a license to Yamalshelf for the East Tasi area through proxies?

Returning to Leonid Mikhelson and Igor Yusufov, it should be noted that there are very specific business connections between them. The fact is that businessmen have a joint project - the company Yargeo, specializing in oil and gas production, 51% of which is controlled by NOVATEK, and 49% by the Swiss company Nefte Petroleum Limited, whose beneficiary is Yusufov. Until April 2021, the place of the Swiss offshore was occupied by another – Cypriot, with an identical name and also owned by the ex-minister.

Perhaps Yusufov needs foreign founders to transfer finances abroad, especially since there is something to withdraw: in April 2018, Yargeo, which owns the license for the Yarudeyskoye oil and gas field in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, paid its shareholders dividends for the previous period in the amount of 5.55 billion rubles . Previously, in 2014-2015. Mikhelson tried to break off cooperation with his partner, accusing him of stopping financing the project and preventing him from raising finance from other available sources.

After litigation in arbitration courts in Yamal and Omsk, the parties were able to resolve the corporate conflict by concluding a settlement agreement. As Forbes wrote, Cypriot Nefte Petroleum approved Yargeo’s budget and business plan, approved loan agreements provided by NOVATEK and loaned the joint venture 16 billion rubles, for which Yusufov pledged half of his share to Gazprombank. In addition, the agreement contained a clause on dividend payments in the amount of 50% of net profit.

There were reports about Yusufov’s possible withdrawal from the project and the sale of his share. Potential buyers were named NOVATEK, which has a pre-emptive right, and the Vietnamese company Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN), which was preparing to purchase 24.5% of Yargeo for $600 million. Perhaps Mikhelson would be glad to get rid of his problematic business partner, but the ex-minister still remained “in the know.”

Losses and offshores of ex-minister Yusufov

For a long time, the media called Yargeo Yusufov’s “main asset” in the fuel and energy complex, but recently Yamalshelf, the sole owner of which is a former official, has increasingly come to the fore. Thus, in June last year, this company received a government license to conduct geological exploration with the right to subsequent production in four subsoil areas in the Kara Sea - Baydaraksky, Ust-Obsky-2, 3 and 4.

Read more:A teenager who stabbed his father while defending his mother will be tried in Yamal

Today, Yamalshelf is in the process of reorganization and clearly does not shine with financial indicators: at the end of 2022, with modest revenue of 875 thousand rubles, its losses amounted to 4.5 million, the value of its assets was 134 thousand. Previously, the company’s co-owners included Cypriot offshore companies Nefteoil Limited, Elkenburg Investments Limited and Neftegaz (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug) LTD, on whose accounts the company’s revenue may have been deposited.

Mr. Yusufov’s structures regularly have problems with official finances, so the accusations leveled against him by Mikhelson may seem quite justified. For example, until September 2021, Yusufov acted as a co-owner of the Energy Complex Development Fund, which is engaged in research activities in the field of natural and technical sciences, which the media associated with Yargeo and even called one of its beneficiaries.

The fund itself has no revenue or profit; its second founder, JSC Energy Corporation, was liquidated in September 2020 with zero revenue, a profit of 26 million rubles and an asset value of minus 185 million. Until June 2020, the corporation was officially headed by the ex-minister himself. One can only be surprised that the state trusts access to the Yamal subsoil to such dubious structures with offshore connections.

Last year, Igor Yusufov took 86th place in the ranking of Russian billionaires according to Forbes: the publication estimated his fortune at $1.1 billion. The former government official is associated with the activities of the New Ore Company (NOK), which is developing the Lugiinskoye gold deposit in the Gazimuro-Zavodsky district of the Trans-Baikal Territory, and last February won an auction for the right to use the subsoil of the Trans-Baikal Zharchinsko-Teremkinskaya area, offering 58.88 million rubles for a license .

But mysterious metamorphoses are also taking place with the finances of the gold-mining NRC: at the end of 2021, with a ridiculous revenue of 70 thousand rubles, its losses amounted to 205.8 million; a year earlier, the company declared revenues of 3.5 million and losses of 138.6 million rubles. Perhaps the reason for the unprofitability lies, again, in connections with offshore companies: the official owner of NRC is the Swiss company Industry Investments AG. Previously, the founders were the Cypriot Industry Investments SU Limited, Lee Mining Holding from Liechtenstein and the Moscow JSC New Oil and Gas Company (NNGC), liquidated in October 2020 with losses of 93 million rubles and the value of assets minus 345 million . In turn, NNGK belonged, among other things, to the Cypriot Boltfeld Holdings Limited.

Sayano-Shushensky “trace” and “revelations” of Dzhako

The future oligarch began to acquire the necessary connections at the very beginning of the 90s, taking the position of deputy head of the Committee for the Protection of Economic Interests of the Russian Federation under President Boris Yeltsin, created by Vice President Alexander Rutsky and his assistant Alexander Sterligov. Then there were a number of high posts: Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations; supervision of Oboronexport and participation in its transformation into Rosvooruzhenie; Deputy Minister of Industry, responsible for the “gold” and “diamond” areas, etc.

The pinnacle of his bureaucratic career was the post of Minister of Energy, which Yusufov held in 2001-2004. in the government of Mikhail Kasyanov, whose confidant he was considered. As a minister, Yusufov served on the boards of directors of RAO UES, Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom. In 2009, Rostekhnadzor named him, along with Anatoly Chubais and other functionaries, as one of the culprits in the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, which killed more than 70 people.

There was another characterizing episode in the biography of the former minister, when his name was heard in the context of the investigation of the criminal case of crime boss Aslan Gagiev (Dzhako), the leader of one of the most brutal organized crime groups, responsible for at least 60 contract killings, extradited to Russia from Austria in June 2018. According to the publication “Our Version”, during court hearings in Vienna, when the issue of extradition was being decided, Gagiev called Yusufov one of his “business partners”: the “authority” was among the owners of the Wadan Yards shipbuilding group.

Subsequently, however, the ex-official removed Gagiev from managing the group, which allegedly caused him damage of $3 billion; a conflict occurred during which the co-owner and chairman of the board of directors of Wadan Yards, Andrei Burlakov, was killed, who became one of the victims of Dzhako’s killers. How true were the gangster’s testimony? If he really lost in the confrontation with Yusufov, then this says a lot. But be that as it may, the former government official has enough connections and influence to enter the next oil and gas projects. Moreover, he is not stopped even by the threat of a possible conflict with such large market participants as Gazprom and NOVATEK.