MOSCOW, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The head of Russia’s state oil
pipeline monopoly, Transneft, signalled on Monday it
was lining up for battle against private magnates who built
their fortunes around the company’s export infrastructure.

The moves described by Transneft chief Nikolai Tokarev,
depicted by Russia’s media as a former KGB spy who served with
Vladimir Putin in Germany, target traders who have sold Russian
oil to Europe using Transneft pipelines and have won lucrative
contracts to build and renovate its vast network.

MOSCOW, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Russia’s move to ban U.S. meat
imports worth over $500 million each year, over a feed additive,
will help domestic producers withstand an influx of cheap meat
after Russia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Western food producers believe protectionism, rather than
concern about additives, is its primary purpose.

MOSCOW/CHICAGO, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Russia may impose a
temporary ban on the import of some U.S. and Canadian beef and
pork products as of Feb. 4, amid concerns that they may contain
a drug used to make animal muscle more lean.

Russia’s Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service
said on Wednesday that both countries were continuing to send
chilled meat products to Russia that violated its import rules
that require such proteins be free of residues from the feed
additive ractopamine.

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Russia’s Eurasia Drilling Co.
sees its volumes of horizontal drilling, key to
Russia’s ability to tap increasingly tight oil reserves and
sustain output, rising by as much as 50 percent next year, its
chief financial officer said.

The real impact of Russia’s push into tighter reserves – oil
trapped in non-porous rock released through horizontal drilling
and multistage hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” – is still
around two years away, Richard Anderson said by telephone.

MOSCOW, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Weather conditions have been
difficult for Russia’s winter grain crop due to dry conditions
during sowing and to cold snaps in some regions in December, the
head of Russia’s Grain Union said on Wednesday.

The conditions described by Grain Union head Arkady
Zlochevsky are broadly similar to those last winter, which
preceded a fall in Russia’s gross grain harvest to just over 70
million tonnes in 2012 from 94 million tonnes in 2011, though
Zlochevsky cautioned it was too early to estimate the damage.

MOSCOW/BANGALORE, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Russia’s state uranium
firm has agreed to pay $1.3 billion to take Canada’s Uranium One
Inc private, as the successor to the Soviet Union’s
nuclear industry seeks to strengthen its grip on supplies.

Atomredmetzoloto and affiliate Effective Energy N.V. -
together known as ARMZ – said on Monday they would buy the
shares in Uranium One they do not already own in a deal valuing
Canada’s No.2 uranium producer at C$2.74 billion ($2.8 billion).

WINNIPEG, Manitoba/MOSCOW, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Canadian pork
shippers will comply with Russia’s new zero tolerance
requirement for the feed additive ractopamine in meat shipments,
Canada Pork International said on Wednesday.

In a letter to Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and
Phytosanitary Surveillance (VPSS), the industry group said that,
as of Dec. 7, all Canadian pork exports destined for Russia are
being tested to ensure they are free of ractopamine.

SAO PAULO/SKOLKOVO, Russia, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Russia and
Egypt, the No. 1 and No. 3 importers of Brazilian beef, may ban
shipments of the meat from the state of Parana, which registered
a case of atypical mad-cow disease earlier this month, Russian
and newspaper sources said.

But both foreign markets are likely to continue to buy large
volumes of beef from other states of the world’s largest
supplier, highlighting the still-limited impact of the atypical
case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly called
mad cow disease, on Brazil’s grass-fed beef industry.

SKOLKOVO, Russia, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Russia, the largest
buyer of Brazilian beef, is unlikely to ban all beef imports
from Brazil due to a suspected case of atypical bovine
spongiform encephalitis, the head of Russia’s veterinary and
phytosanitary service said.

“We are analysing the data now, but we do not see enough
grounds to place import restrictions on the whole country,”
Sergei Dankvert said in an interview on the sidelines of a
meeting with Italian diplomats.

LONDON, Dec 13 (Reuters) – Russia’s Rosneft is
talking to oil majors and traders including Shell, Total and
Glencore to raise up to $10 billion, using future oil exports as
collateral, to complete its purchase of TNK-BP and become the
world’s biggest listed oil producer.

Such trade finance is usually the least preferred option for
oil firms, as they like to keep their export flows free from
obligations, but the $55 billion acquisition of TNK-BP, a joint
venture between BP and Soviet-born billionaires, will
most likely be testing banks’ exposure limits for one borrower.