Russia

TNK-BP Ltd., BP PLC's Russian venture, hopes a recent bankruptcy filing at a Siberian gas venture will speed up the government's takeover of the project, allowing TNK-BP to recover at least some of the roughly $900 million it invested there, interim Chief Executive Mikhail Fridman said Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under pressure from regulators, TNK-BP agreed to sell its controlling stake in the huge Kovykta field to state gas giant OAO Gazprom back in 2007. But Gazprom never closed the deal and executives say publicly the company doesn't need Kovykta's huge reserves.

TNK-BP, a joint venture between Britain's BP and a group of Russian billionaires, said on Thursday that its unit which holds the license to the vast Kovykta gas field had filed for bankruptcy, Agence France-Presse reported. TNK-BP said the RUSIA Petroleum unit is unable to pay off debts to its parent company. "The current financial situation precludes RUSIA Petroleum from timely repayment of its loans to TNK-BP Group," the company said in a statement. The loans were made to the subsidiary to finance the development of the vast Kovykta gas field, it said.

Sea Launch's plans to emerge from bankruptcy under majority Russian ownership are still subject to court and regulatory approval, but company leaders say they expect to resume commercial missions early next year, Spaceflight Now reported. The besieged launch firm filed a plan of reorganization in a Delaware bankruptcy court this week, kicking off several months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Sea Launch's new owners and unsecured creditors.

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.