14 June 2004 22:11
Cash from oil industry may restore "human standards" in Chechnya - paper
Chechnya's oil sector, plundered and neglected during the years of rebel fighting for independence, is now up
and running and generating money that can be used to restore normal life in the republic. The following is an excerpt
from a report by Klim Deryabin entitled "Theft of black gold in Chechnya remains a big problem" published in
the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 9 June:
The recent murder of the Chechen president, [Akhmat] Kadyrov, has provided Russian society with a further reminder of
the Chechen problem. [Passage omitted]
The foundation of the republic's economy is oil and the main point of stabilizing the situation in the region
was and remains the restoration and development of the fuel and energy complex. Of course, the overall instability also
extends to the oil industry: acts of terrorist sabotage at oil wells and constant thefts of oil, equipment and property
from the Grozneftegaz company [Groznyy oil and gas company] continue unabated. [Passage omitted]
During his most recent trip to the republic in May, Sergey Bogdanchikov, president of the state company Rosneft
[Russia oil] and the man responsible for the restoration of the Chechen "oil industry", assessed the damage
inflicted on the local fuel and energy complex by bandit activity at 100m dollars. The main target of all the sorties by
the underground "oil kings", who were also [rebel] field commanders, was the Grozneftegaz joint-stock company,
which is engaged in oil production in Chechnya. The state company Rosneft owns a 51-per-cent stake in Grozneftegaz,
while 41 per cent belongs to the property ministry of the Chechen Republic. Thanks to the results of a tender, Rosneft
has held the licenses for fields under development since 2002.
Back in Soviet times, what Grozneftegaz has done over the past three years would have been regarded as a Stakhanovite
victory [Stakhanov was a legendary USSR figure renowned for prodigious output] and as setting a kind of challenge. The
company has restored almost 256 energy installations in Chechnya: oil tank farms, pipelines, electricity transmission
lines and much else. Yet just three years ago virtually all the assets of this once large and flourishing enterprise lay
in ruins. Twenty-eight wells had to be saved and it was necessary to repair the oil collection and transportation system
and get it up and running.
Now, Grozneftegaz is confidently increasing oil production and it is planned that in 2004 this will amount to almost
2m tonnes, which is 200,000 t higher than the figures for last year. The general director of Grozneftegaz, Baudi
Khamidov, is the man who, in his time, started the process of rebuilding the republic's fuel and energy complex
from nothing with the aim of restoring the "oil industry", which was once famous throughout the [Soviet]
Union. He believes that a great deal remains to be done. The not inconsiderable sum of revenue earned from oil sales
shows that the efforts of the company's employees have not been in vain: in just the first three months of 2004, it
managed to sell crude to the value of 132m dollars.
The profit obtained from export sales of oil is used to finance work on the reconstruction of the oil and gas complex
and transfers are made to a special account in the Russian Federation energy ministry for the development of the social
sphere. Last year Grozneftegaz transferred 2.3bn dollars to the federal and local budgets, including 1.2bn dollars to
the territorial budget. This money is being used to restore peaceful life in the republic, to build houses, schools,
roads... [newspaper's ellipsis]
[Passage omitted] In today's conditions the oil sector is the very industry that may bring cash to the economy
of the ravaged republic in serious quantities. So although it is true that mistakes, and at times even overtly criminal
policy, have at one time ruined Chechnya and its fuel and energy complex, once famous throughout the entire USSR, that
very same oil industry might now restore universal human standards to the political life of the republic.
[Nezavisimaya Gazeta] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
