Belarus requests loan up to USD 2 bln from EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund.

MINSK, February 17 (Itar-Tass) -- The Belarusian government has filed
an application for a loan of up to two billion U.S. dollars from the
Anti-Crisis Fund of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC).
"The government is considering the possibility of borrowing up to two
billion U.S. dollars from the EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund," Vice Prime
Minister Sergei Rumas said.
Finance Minister Andrei Kharkovets said the Anti-Crisis Fund's
executive bodies are considering the application and will hopefully give
an answer in March.
The Anti-Crisis Fund earlier elaborated lending rules. The maximum
loan will depend on the national GDP. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan earlier
requested financial assistance from the fund. Russia and Kazakhstan said
they would not make such borrowings in the near future.
The Anti-Crisis Fund will issue loans at a rate of 1-3 percent for
countries with low incomes. Loans will be issued for up to 20 years with a
five-year grace period.
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Armenia are
Anti-Crisis Fund members.

.RF govt to decide on licenses to Gazprom, Rosneft for offshore
operations.

MOSCOW, February 17 (Itar-Tass) -- The Russian government will decide
whether to issue licenses to Gazprom and Rosneft for the development of
offshore fields on the country's continental shelf, Deputy Minister of
Natural Resources Darya Vasilevskaya said.
Gazprom and Rosneft have requested licenses for the same offshore
fields.
"The Russian government will decide how to solve the issue either by
issuing [a license] to one of them or to both," Vasilevskaya said.
She also said that Gazprom and Rosneft were negotiating possible joint
development of the fields but no documents had been signed so far.

.Vekselberg hopes over 20 Italian companies will join Skolkovo project.

ROME, February 17 (Itar-Tass) -- Skolkovo innovation project chief
manager Viktor Vekselberg said he was hopeful that more than 20 Italian
companies, including ENI and ENEL, will join in.
"We are negotiating with more than 30 companies, including such energy
companies as ENI and ENEL," Vekselberg said.
"We should not expect multi-billion investments from these companies,
but the results of the research in which they will get involved should
produce results," the businessman said.
According to Vekselberg, since the creation of the Fund "quite a large
amount of work has been done, which has served as the basis for the
meeting agenda."
Projects to be undertaken by the companies working at the Skolkovo
innovation centre will have to meet stringent requirements, Vekselberg
said.
He named two of them: "projects that will be implemented through
co-financing" and mandatory participation of "both Russian universities
and academia, and foreign partners and foreign specialists, including
individuals, who would be a factor of support to some extent."
Speaking of foreign venture companies that have an interest in
Skolkovo, Vekselberg, said the process of familiarisation was underway and
"more systemic" relations were being formed with companies that have
experience of working in Russia.
"It is very important for us to emphasise the level of trust, comfort
and understanding. Russia is an interesting market, it's an environment
where venture capital can exist. This is fundamentally important for us,"
he said.
Vekselberg also stressed that projects would have to meet "a rather
high level of requirements".
Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich called for finding a
correct balance between two key tasks when implementing the Skolkovo
project: being an innovation centre and acting as a driving force for
innovation development of Russia as a whole.

.Nord Stream not to replace other gas supply routes - Gazprom CEO.

ROME, February 17 (Itar-Tass) --The start of natural gas supplies by
the Nord Stream pipeline will not mean an end to transit by other routes,
including Belarus and Ukraine, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said.
"It's not about that. These supplies [by Nord Stream] will be made
under new contracts," Miler said.
He recalled that the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline should
be completed in May 2011, after which the first test supplies will be made
this spring.
"These supplies will be made under long-term contracts," he added.
According to Miller, gas will be purchased by Gazprom's traditional
partners in Europe.
North Stream will run across the Baltic Sea. The first stretch of the
pipeline is scheduled to be commissioned in 2011, and the second one, in
2012. The total capacity of the pipeline is 55 billion cubic metres of a
gas year.
In Russia, a 917-kilometre-long onshore connection is being built by
Gazprom, to connect Nord Stream to the Russian gas transportation system.
Nord Stream will transport 27.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas
from late 2011, and up to 55 billion cubic metres from 2012. This amount
of gas corresponds to the energy produced by 55 coal power plants pr 20
new nuclear reactors.
The Shtokman gas and condensate field will be a resource base for gas
deliveries via Nord Stream.
-0-zak/


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