New personnel enter the commodity exchange

As Kommersant learned, after the appointment of the former head of the FAS Igor Artemyev to the post of head of the St. Petersburg International Exchange Exchange, changes are expected in its leadership. Thus, a long-time associate of Mr. Artemyev, Pavel Zaborshchikov, will be appointed as the new vice-president and chief of staff of SPbIMTS. In addition, Marat Zagidullin, who recently left his post as director of the Rosneft department, will become vice president of the exchange.

As Kommersant found out, former Rosneft manager Marat Zagidullin will be appointed vice president of SPbIMEX. Until recently, Mr. Zagidullin was the director of the oil and petroleum products trading department of Rosneft. In September, the WSJ reported his resignation, which coincided with the worsening fuel crisis in the country amid a sharp rise in stock prices. Kommersant’s interlocutors do not know what functionality Marat Zagidullin will have in his new place of work, but some of them perceive this appointment as a signal of increased control of the exchange by the largest shareholder. Rosneft, according to the latest data, owns 23% in St. Petersburg International Trading Company, among the shareholders are also other major oil companies, Transneft and JSC Russian Railways.

Personnel changes followed a change in the head of the exchange: in early November, instead of Alexey Rybnikov, the former head of the FAS, Igor Artemyev, was appointed to the post of president of SPIMEX. According to Kommersant, he will bring his longtime associate Pavel Zaborshchikov, who will take the position of vice-president and chief of staff of SPbIMTS. Mr. Zaborshchikov began working at FAS in 2004, from the moment Igor Artemyev headed the service. For seven years he headed the FAS affairs department, and then headed the administrative department and the secretariat of the head of the service. In 2019, Mr. Zaborshchikov became one of the deputy heads of the FAS, in this position he oversaw the administrative area and the agro-industrial complex. After Igor Artemyev left the service in 2020 and became an assistant to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Pavel Zaborshchikov followed him into the government as an assistant.

SPbMTSB declined to comment.

The change of leadership at the SPbMTSB exchange occurred against the backdrop of government attempts to stop the rise in exchange prices for fuel, which has continued continuously since the spring and accelerated in September. As a result, the government was forced to resort to an unprecedented embargo on the export of diesel fuel and gasoline, which cooled the market. Due to the growth of stock quotes in September, oil companies for the first time in history lost damper payments in the amount of about 150 billion rubles, since average monthly prices for diesel fuel and AI-92 gasoline deviated from the indicative ones (established in the Tax Code) by more than 20% and 10 % respectively. This happened despite the fact that in September the exchange changed the trading procedure, introduced a special opening auction, and also took other measures to limit trading activity, explaining this by the need to combat “unscrupulous bidders.”

“The government did not react in time to price changes on the world market due to rising oil prices. But this is a regulated position, yesterday we were only with Igor Ivanovich Sechin (head of Rosneft.— “Kommersant”) talked. He has his own position on this matter, but in general, manufacturers and the government have agreed on how they will act in the near future,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in September. After the introduction of the export embargo, exchange prices for gasoline and diesel fuel fell by 30% and 20%, respectively. In addition, the government decided to return full damper payments to oil workers from October, and also eased the ban on the export of diesel fuel, allowing its pipeline supplies. Kommersant’s interlocutors expect that the ban on gasoline exports will be lifted in the near future.

Dmitry Kozlov