Russia

The new gas deal with Russia offering Ukraine a 30% discount on the price of Russian natural gas supplies will help Naftogaz to avoid bankruptcy, the Ukrainian national energy company said in a statement on Thursday, RIA Novosti reported. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych agreed during their meeting on Wednesday in Kharkov in east Ukraine that Russia would grant Ukraine a 30% discount on the gas price of $330 per 1,000 cu m over the next ten years.

Managers of defunct Russian oil firm YUKOS have won injunctions hitting payments by foreign customers to state oil major Rosneft, jeopardising delivery of up to a fifth of Russia's oil exports, sources told Reuters. Rosneft's shares fell by as much as 3 percent on the news, which raised fears about the flagship company's exposure to a raft of lawsuits relating to some of its key assets. Rosneft declined to comment on the injunctions but trade sources said they were part of a protracted legal battle between YUKOS and the Russian government.

GAZ Group, the Russian carmaker owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, “officially completed” restructuring 39.2 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) of debt, clearing the way for the government to guarantee its loans, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “This is a unique transaction because of the large number of participants involved, the large amount of ruble debt and the use of Russian legislation,” Alexander Bazarov, a vice president of OAO Sberbank, which managed the restructuring, told reporters in Moscow today.

Ukraine's presidential election yesterday—which appears headed to a second round run-off on Feb. 7 between the two leading candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko—unfolds against the background of financial ruin, The Wall Street Journal reported in an opinion piece. It has long been obvious that the defeat of the incumbent, Viktor Yushchenko, who has painted himself into the anti-Russian nationalist corner, would produce a political rapprochement between Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Yanukovych is committed to non-alignment (meaning no application for NATO membership) while Ms.

Germany's Blue Wings is looking for funds following a dispute with shareholder Alexander Lebedev, as financial problems led regulators to ban the Duesseldorf-based airline from flying, Reuters reported. The carrier halted flights earlier on Wednesday, mere hours before German aviation authorities revoked its operating license for the time being, according to a spokesman for the company. Blue Wings' financial woes, which have left its staff without pay since mid-November, stem from a lack of financing from shareholders, the spokesman said.

Russia's state development bank VEB may resume giving out subordinated loans to banks as lending remains flat even after the government disbursed nearly $13 billion of the rescue package to the banking system, Reuters reported. "I concede that we may have to return to this instrument," the central bank's first deputy chairman, Gennady Melikyan, told the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs' (RSPP) banking committee meeting on Thursday.

Rusal, the largest aluminum producer in the world, which is struggling under $16.7 billion in debt, has agreed with about 70 banks to restructure its loans and begin repayments when earnings improve, the company said Thursday, The New York Times/em> reported. The deal, apparently on lenient terms for Rusal and its owner, the Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska, also clears the way for Rusal to take the next step back from the brink of bankruptcy: selling 10 percent of the company in an initial public offering this month.

Russia's AvtoVAZ could face bankruptcy if it is unable to reach a debt restructuring deal with its banks, despite support from its 25 percent stakeholder Renault, Reuters reported. Speaking during a presentation at AvtoVAZ headquarters in Togliatti, a company official said the future of the Lada-maker remained on the line and said the company has 22,000 extra staff on its payroll that are not anticipated to have any work before 2012.

Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz, battered by higher gas import prices and the country's deep recession, said on Monday investors in its $500 million Eurobond had agreed to its restructuring terms, Reuters reported. The company, often at the centre of energy rows with Russia that have previously led to supply cuts to Europe, wants to swap its entire foreign debt -- including the Eurobond -- for a new 5-year issue worth $1.65 billion. Bondholders gathered in London in Monday after weeks of consideration and overwhelmingly approved the new terms.

Hundreds of millions of euros in German state aid planned for carmaker Opel is earmarked for operations in Russia, an Opel trustee with reservations about the project was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview. "More than 600 million euros ($876 million) of the 4.5 billion (in German aid) is supposed to be used to modernize the Russian automotive industry according to the Magna plan," Dirk Pfeil told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview, part of which was released ahead of publication on Monday.