February 28, 2013 [Kommersant] - The Summa Group and Transneft have reached a compromise on the control of Novorossiisk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP), which is managed on an equal footing. Maxim Grishanin, the first vice-president and CFO of the Transneft, will become chairman of the board of directors of the port. Rado Antolovich, whom the state owned company wanted to change, will remain in the position of CEO of NCSP.
Transneft reported that as a result “of a number of working meetings” with representatives of the management of the NCSP and the Summa Group “practical steps to optimize the control circuit of the port” were agreed. It was decided to hold a mid-March meeting of the Board of Directors of the NCSP, in which representatives of the Summa Group and Transneft together will vote for the election of Maxim Grishanin as the Chairman of the Board. Currently this post is occupied by the representative of the Summa Group – Marat Shaidan. According to the source of Kommersant, Mr. Shaidan will continue operating the port as first deputy general director of the NCSP, the entire top management team of the port will remain.
Nadezhda Malysheva, Development Director of Portnews, said, because the operational management of the port remains in the Summa Group hands, it will most likely focus more on the partner and the development of oil facilities located in the NCSP. “Arguments with the state-owned Transneft are not in Summa Groups’ interests,” – she said. In her opinion, Transneft originally did not expect full satisfaction of its claims and the offer of the CEO replacement “was formal”.
The conflict over the management of the port of Novorossiisk began with the letter of Nikolay Tokarev, the President of Transneft, on 6 February to Ziyavudin Magomedov, Rado Antolovich and Marat Shaydaeva, in connection with the “repeated disregard for the position of Transneft and its representatives” on key management aspects of the NCSP. The state-owned monopoly initiated a meeting of the Board of Directors of the port, offering to elect Maxim Grishanin as its chairman, to approve Sergei Kireev, the head of Transneft-Service, as its interim CEO until new CEO will be elected.
The Transneft report also notes that by March 15, the top management of the NCSP and the representatives of Transneft will discuss and agree on a general project plan in Sheskharis crude-region. A source close to the top management of the NCSP, added that this general plan is already assigned for 2013. The long-term (up to 2020 year) forecasts of crude volumes are expected from Transneft. The large-scale investments in Sheskharis will be based on these realistic forecast.
