PRESS: Rosneft asks Russian govt to revise Transneft tariffs

MOSCOW, Sep 26 (PRIME) -- Russian oil major Rosneft has offered the government to revise the principle of investment component in tariffs of oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, Kommersant business daily reported Monday citing a letter by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.

Rosneft has proposed to exclude the mechanism of long-term investment tariffs, which Transneft uses to build pipelines to oil companies’ facilities. Transneft receives the pipeline in ownership and have a profit after the launch, while a real investor is not being ensured with a return of investments.

Sechin is not also content with the fact that investments in infrastructure are attracted through growth of payments for oil transportation on other directions. Moreover, Rosneft is not content that dividends are taken into account in Transneft’s tariffs. Guaranteed payments do not allow to appraise efficiency of Transneft’s work and deprive it from stimulus to reduce expenditures and losses, Sechin said. Rosneft and many other clients of Transneft are also state companies and pay dividends to the government, while such system of tariff calculation decreases their net profit and dividends.

Rosneft asked the Economic Development Ministry to provide its position on the issue by September 16. A spokesperson for the ministry said that tariffs for Transneft are set for five years and are not strictly tied to the level of dividends.

Transneft responded to the Federal Antimonopoly Service in mid-September saying that long-term agreements are being applied for over 10 years and are the most progressive form of meeting oil companies’ demand for infrastructure expansion. Transneft has implemented over 20 such agreements, including with Rosneft, and is not imposing agreements on no one, while tariffs are being set by the government and Transneft acts only as investor and builder.

The abolishment of contract tariffs and inclusion of investment component in the general tariff will lead to the situation when all companies will pay for infrastructure used only by one oil firm, which will be a “real discrimination,” Transneft said. The inclusion of dividends in tariffs is actually the only way to get funds for payments to shareholders, and if abolished, the government will not receive profit from pipelines, while the budget revenue from higher profit of oil companies in case of reduced tariffs will be significantly lower than Transneft’s dividends, it said.

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