Rusal Guyana monitoring situation – company official

US sanctions on Russian tycoon

Top management of the Rusal-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI/ RUSAL) are continuously monitoring the situation globally after United States imposed blacklisting sanctions on a number of Russian businessmen and officials.
Among those sanctioned by the US is Russian business tycoon Oleg Deripaska, main owner of the EN+ conglomerate, co-owner of Rusal.
A management official at level of Rusal’s operations here told <<Guyana Times>> yesterday that the company is now awaiting word from the Moscow office. The official noted that it is too early to ascertain whether or what impact the sanction could have on the company’s operations here.
“These are early times. We’ve all heard of it, but this (is) the weekend and so we don’t know for sure what’s going on, until maybe in the new week. At this time, everybody just have their ears open, listening to see what we can pick up. Our head office is shut in Moscow, so we don’t know what is happening at this time,” the official noted.
Asked whether there has been any meeting among top management at the company locally since news of the sanctions broke, the manager explained that there is usually a managers’ review meeting in the mornings to discuss operations in the past 24 hours. The official added that nothing on the sanctions or from Moscow was formally brought up.
The company official went on to say that since the news broke on Friday, there has not been any change to operations here. However, while reiterating that it is still too early to make an assessment, the official noted that, over the past three weeks or so, the company has being making “huge investments” in equipment to improve operations in Guyana.
“We have lots of forks, excavators and everything that are coming in. As a matter of fact, as we speak right now, there’re three huge trucks that came in, and they’ve just been launched and put into operation. This would have been so sudden, so abrupt… and I don’t think anybody could have estimated that something like this would’ve happened, but it would be too early to speculate what could happen,” the official asserted.
The US Treasury Department, in a statement on Friday, announced the sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs, 12 companies they either own or control, and 17 senior Government officials who Washington said were profiting from the Russian Government’s engagement in “a range of malign activities” around the world.
“Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities,” the US statement added.
The Treasury Department warned that US entities would be “generally prohibited” from dealings with the persons and firms on the sanctions list, while added that companies outside the United States could face sanctions for “knowingly facilitating significant transactions for, or on behalf of,” the sanctioned entities.
A report published by Reuters on Friday said that the US Government’s decision to include Deripaska on its sanctions blacklist will reverberate around the world, because his business empire has a global footprint and counts major multinationals as partners.

Deripaska, estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of $6.7 billion, is the main owner of the conglomerate EN+, co-owner of some of the world’s biggest metals producers, Rusal and Nornickel.
According to the international news agency, Deripaska’s inclusion on the U.S. sanctions list could potentially create complications for companies with which he does business. They include German car giant Volkswagen and commodities trader Glencore.
Rusal, Reuters reported, had said it regretted its inclusion on the U.S. sanctions list, adding that its advisors were studying the situation.
Hong Kong-listed Rusal is one of the world’s biggest aluminium producers. It says exports to the United States account for over 10 percent of its output.
Rusal owns assets in Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Nigeria, Guyana, Guinea. It owns a stake in Australian QAL, the world’s top alumina refinery.