Igor Yusufov “scored” the meeting at Tasiysky

In the struggle for the East Tasi gas section, the interests of Igor Yusufov and Leonid Mikhelson may collide. 

"Yamal Shelf Company" ("Yamalshelf") of the former head of the Ministry of Energy (2000-2004) Igor Yusufov is in a hurry to obtain a license for the development of the East Tasi gas section in Yamal. The day before, she presented the adjusted boundaries of the site, which Rosnedra had previously “turned down” due to a slight “cartographic” inaccuracy.

Igor Yusufov has been trying to obtain a license for this site by application since 2021, and is clearly in a hurry. After all, in the fight for it, he may collide with the interests of the Novatek corporation of Leonid Mikhelson, which is developing its deposits very nearby.

At one time, Igor Yusufov’s structures were one of the initiators of the idea of licensing such areas and were the first to receive areas in the Ob and Baydaratskaya bays on an application basis. Applications are accepted in two windows: in December-January and June-July, so, as they say, first come first.

Be the first to sit on the spot

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In the case of the East Tasi gas section, the application for it from Yamalshelf was approved by Rosnedra back in 2021, but a license was never obtained. It turned out that the application did not receive approval from the Government of the Russian Federation - supposedly incorrect coordinates were attached to it, which brought the site into the zone of a specially protected natural area. As a result, last winter Yamalshelf had to submit a new application - this time in the correct version.

This looks strange: a small inaccuracy in documents in the Russian Federation is usually cleverly covered up by the corruption mechanism. Perhaps the site is being held for some other player, which could be either Gazprom or Leonid Mikhelson’s Novatek. Is Head of Government Mikhail Mishustin acting in the interests of a major gas oligarch?

At the same time, the plots, as they say, have already been “cut”, but they may again end up in the unallocated fund, from where it will be much easier for Mikhelson to get them. Earlier, Kommersant wrote about the possibility of redistributing sections of the Tambey cluster, where Gazprom operates - it also includes the Tasi section - adjacent to the one that Yusufov is claiming.

At the same time, Yusufov, Gazprom and Novatek are not the only ones willing to enter the “clearing”. Roman Abramovich may have his own interest in these deposits, and, consequently, in the redistribution of the fund.

In February of this year, Rosnedra received an application from Promgazresurs LLC for a license to develop the Yeniseisko-Karsky-1 and 2 sections. This office belongs to TsGK Gazresurs and Bonanza. TsGK Gazresurs is owned by Tatyana Morozova and Dmitry Kamyshev. Morozova comes from Gazprom - for more than ten years she headed the Gazprom Neft mergers and acquisitions department. She still cooperates with the corporation through the New Industry investment fund.

"TsGK Gazresurs" is headed by a native of Arkady Abramovich’s structures - Sergei Eliseev. Arkady Abramovich is the son of “that same” Abramovich, who can act with his son’s hands in places that his own have not yet reached.

Collision with Mikhelson

In the case of Yusufov and Mikhelson, their possible conflict may lie on fertile ground, because before they had already had a dispute on corporate grounds. These two businessmen have a joint project - the Yargeo mining company, where Novatek owns 51%, and Yusufov - 49% through the Swiss offshore Nefte Petroleum Limited.

Against the background of the crisis in 2014, Novatek accused its partner of slowing down the development of the project and not contributing its share of financing, while Igor Yusufov insisted on a number of “tasty” conditions for him.

In July 2015, the parties entered into a settlement: Yusufov achieved the conclusion of a shareholder agreement for Yargeo under English law and the payment of 50% of profits in the form of dividends. At the same time, he pledged half of the share in the project to Gazprombank for a loan of 16 billion rubles in order to fulfill financing obligations.

That is, even then Yusufov could have pitted his two “sworn colleagues” - Leonid Mikhelson and Alexei Miller - against each other. It seems that such a conflict may flare up again. It is noteworthy that after this story, in 2017 alone, Yusufov received 5.5 billion rubles in dividends from the project - wouldn’t it be “fat” with such loans? Considering that Yusufov had to receive this amount through an offshore company, it is unlikely that the money remained in Russia...

Taking into account the above, a possible conflict between Yusufov and Mikhelson over the fields in Yamal, in addition to corporate ones, could also harm state interests.

It was said that Yargeo is Yusufov’s largest asset in the fuel and energy sector. It’s hard to believe in this, since a lot of deposits and assets in the industry are registered in his Energy fund. For example, there were assets of Energy Corporation JSC, the founder of which was directly the former Minister of Energy Igor Yusufov. The company was liquidated under surrendered circumstances in the summer of 2020.

From state reserves to killers

Allowing Yusufov to access national wealth means incurring risks. The current oligarch himself, as they say, made himself in the dashing 90s, and obviously not without the help of the authorities of those years. He got into government administration, it seems, by accident: he was invited to a meeting with President Boris Yeltsin about the removal of resources from the country, and the Head of State allegedly liked Yusufov’s “speech” so much that he asked to be employed “closer to the body.”

So Yusufov became deputy chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Economic Interests of Russia. Later the committee was disbanded, its employees were transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations (MFER). Which oversaw, among other things, the arms trade. How many guns, missiles and other things were taken out of the country through gray schemes during that period - one can only guess.

And from 1997 to 2001, Yusufov was the general director of the State Committee for Reserves (since 1999 - Rosrezerv). The agency had previously distributed interest-free loans to its suppliers. But a year after the appointment of a new CEO, their volume tripled. Forbes wrote about this.

How this often ended can be seen in the example of Sibneft. In September 1999, the company received 434 million rubles in advance for oil products, which it was supposed to supply to Rosrezerv by the beginning of the year. In six months, less than half of the order reached the warehouses.

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No investigation into this and other similar situations was achieved. But after Yusufov left, a whole troop of inspectors landed at Rosrezerv. As a result, as many as 35 criminal cases were opened, Versiya wrote. But they did not affect Yusufov.

He also has a son, Vitaly, the owner of the Nordic Yards company and co-owner of Osnova Telecom. It seems that from a young age he was drawn into the endeavors with which his father was associated. In 2004-2006, Vitaly Yusufov worked as assistant to the general director of Gazprom Export LLC Alexander Medvedev. Around the same time, Yusufov Sr. was on the board of directors of Gazprom.

During all this time, the Yusufovs acquired a huge number of connections. They are also credited with some kind of relationship with the famous killer Aslan Gagiev. As Versiya wrote, when Gagiev was caught in Vienna, at a trial for extradition to the Russian Federation, he allegedly said that Yusufov allegedly seized his business worth $3 billion.

Igor Yusufov denies any connection with the killer Aslan Gagiev (pictured left). 

Apparently, we could be talking about the shipbuilding company Wadan Yards, where Gagiev allegedly worked. During that conflict, Andrei Burlakov, chairman of the board of directors of the Wadan Yards shipbuilding group, was killed. As a result, this crime was “pinned” on Gagiev’s group. Did this, even indirectly, affect the interests of the Yusufov family?

The company’s shipyards were located in Germany; after bankruptcy, they were bought by Vitaly Yusufov for 40 million euros. In 2010, the shipyards, the value of which was estimated at 722-911 million euros, were mortgaged by Yusufov Jr. under a credit line from the Bank of Moscow. As a result, Yusufov Jr. became the owner of 20% of the bank’s shares.

And the former owner of these shares, the head of the Bank of Moscow, Andrei Borodin, was forced to flee abroad. Later, he was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in prison for embezzling 14.5 billion rubles of funds from a credit institution. Did the Yusufovs have anything to do with it?

Shadow of a disgraced oligarch

Returning to Gagiev - could the famous killer work for people whom Yusufov knew? The businessman and former official himself flatly refuses to acknowledge any connection. But these rumors connect him with another well-known businessman, oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, previously convicted and now fled the country (recognized as a foreign agent, extremist and terrorist in the Russian Federation).

Previously, Khodorkovsky (recognized as a foreign agent, extremist and terrorist in the Russian Federation) was also associated with contract killings, in particular, with the murder of the mayor of Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov in 1998.

According to evil tongues, allegedly Mr. Yusufov was friends with the scandalous oligarch since the 90s, and then could provide him with patronage as the head of the Ministry of Energy. They even celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Yukos company together - Yusufov was the guest of honor and was one of the first to take the floor, congratulating the company’s employees on the anniversary.

Igor Yusufov at the anniversary of Yukos. 

That is, it can be assumed that Mr. Yusufov could well have used the methods of his alleged friend, now living in Germany. Maybe Igor Yusufov himself, after his righteous labors, is going there to retire?

At the same time, surprisingly, Mr. Yusufov was somehow able to avoid Western sanctions. Due to what? Old connections with fugitive businessmen?

Now the oligarch is entering the largest gas fields in Russia, and even risks getting involved in a serious conflict with other major players. Why does the state need this, it seems, is a rhetorical question...