RusEnergy

06.05.2005 14:27 MSK - MosNews - The Russian Audit Chamber has accused Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, which operates the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in Russia's Far East, of breaking a product-sharing agreement which led to $2.6 billion in damages, Russia's daily newspaper Business reported on Friday, May 6. The paper reported that on May 16, the supervisory board of the Sakhalin-2 project will decide whether it is lawful to give all of the project's shipbuilding contracts to foreign companies. Russian companies say that Sakhalin Energy is "taking discriminating steps" towards them. Mikhail Boyarkin, deputy chief of Concern of Medium and Small Tonnage Shipbuilding (KCMK) told the paper that Sakhalin Energy unexpectedly gave a contract to build four terminal tugboats to the Singaporean firm Keppel, because the Amur shipbuilding plant (part of the Concern) allegedly did not have time to build them. "But if we have built 56 nuclear submarines, we could easily cope with the tugs, all the more so as Sakhalin Energy approved the plant to work on Sakhalin II," Boyarkin said. "Not a single shipbuilding company in the [Russian] Far East is involved in Sakhalin II," he concluded. "Taxpayers' money is going to the West and to foreign contractors." Under the product sharing agreement, Russia's share in the project should be 70 percent, but Boyarkin said it did not exceed 10 percent, the paper reported. He added that according to the Audit Chamber's calculations Sakhalin Energy inflicted $2.6 billion worth of damages on Russia. A source in the Audit Chamber told the paper, on the condition of anonymity, that the figure was accurate. "The said figure is very accurate, but this is the minimum sum," the source said. "Nobody calculated the damages inflicted by delays in fulfilling the commitments, and in reality the damages amount to billions of dollars." The Audit Chamber source conceded that corrupt officials were partly to blame for the problems. Shipbuilders are not the only ones who are unhappy about the way Sakhalin Energy made its decisions. The hydro construction work group Bureyagesstroy along with U.S. Ackerman Technology participated in the tender for constructing offshore platforms. "In January 2000 we found out that we won the tender, but the contract was given to Ackerman Technology working in conjunction with the Finnish company Quadrigemini," one of Bureyagesstroy's officials told the paper. "Sakhalin Energy gave us no explanations and provided us with no documents." Sakhalin Energy has declined to comment on this information.