Rusneftegaz can announce that our website will be unavailable between 17 March and 20 March for planned maintenance, with our technical engineers doing their utmost to minimize the inconvenience to the users of this site. Although this outage will not result in any visual changes, it will yield a number of security and performance updates that have been necessary for several months. Due to the length of time this will require, it was deemed conducive to briefly interrupt the service of our virtual presence next week to allow this to be fully completed. All the material that is currently accessible, including all the news articles and documents we have published, will remain at your disposal once the upgrade is finished. However, we can confirm that all the regular means of communication we offer will be available throughout this period, except for the submissions form on our website, which will be unusable during the allocated timeframe. Therefore, we advise anyone who wishes to communicate with us to do so via telephone or fax on +7 (499) 370-65-58, through email at inquiries@rusneftegaz.ru, or by personally requesting the contact details of a known member of our staff if urgent. Despite the fact this disruption is anticipated to take less than the allotted time, it may hinder those who otherwise intended to use these resources, and thus we necessitate your cooperation and understanding with this pressing matter.

Rusneftegaz can today announce that following a comprehensive internal review of our management structure, our leadership has filed motions at our upcoming annual general meeting on 7 April to appoint two independent directors to our board. Likewise, each member of our current hierarchy has simultaneously acted as a signatory to a joint declaration addressed to all our stakeholders recommending their approval of this change, which would be implemented immediately after the vote has been passed. Therefore, propositions to elect both Sergei Kolesnikov and Eduard Rudakov have been tabled and will be voted upon in due course, each of whom will bring vast acumen and be capable of demanding accountability from our enterprise. It is the erstwhile belief of our present administration that the addition of these two personnel would add significant knowledge and expertise to the body, while also imparting wisdom and experience. Although we do not conceive that there is a shortage of skills or competence in its existing composition, our leaders broadly acknowledge that, as an organization seeking to rapidly expand, it is critical to find specialists who work in areas that we may be otherwise unfamiliar with. Whilst such potential issues are not anticipated to arise from any matter pertaining to production or trading, it is foreseen that we may require professionals that are proficient in expanding a corporation internationally. In response to this news, our Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Aleksandr Filyurin, issued this statement:  

“Firstly, I would like to thank the ownership group for their assistance and encouragement with this idea; they have always provided us with useful advice about the direction that they want Rusneftegaz to take. When we first had the idea of appointing some independent directors, it would have been too easy for them to reject the idea completely and tell us to move on from it, but they listened to what we had to say and then agreed on a good compromise with us. Since I joined this company in 2015, I have always been conscious of the fact that the board of directors and the day-to-day management board are identical. We have always wanted to maintain the highest standards here, whether that is in terms of the business we do or in terms of things like corporate governance. To be honest, trying to maintain these standards has major consequences. By being as open and as transparent as possible, we can work with more companies, whether that is to increase our trade finance lines or do deals with customers who want to do business with a good, credible company. Overall, I am optimistic that we will be able to make a couple of high-quality additions to our board soon. We have chosen two outstanding candidates after an extensive recruitment process, and I am confident that their approval will be a formality.”  

Both the proposed nominees are highly qualified individuals who have led exemplary and distinguished careers in their respective fields. In his role as an accountant, Rudakov was a senior auditor at Deloitte for over two decades prior to his retirement from this role this summer, whereas Kolesnikov originally graduated from Saint Petersburg State University with a degree in economics. He has spent his entire professional life in posts across various banks, including Sberbank and the predecessors to what is now VTB. After a long and exhaustive process, our board of directors mutually concluded that these were the two most suitable candidates for each position, with both expected to be confirmed in their roles during a confirmatory vote. However, it is to be emphasized that our executive leadership consulted with our stakeholders before the decision to commence this action had started, with our shareholders fully endorsing such plans, thus making their approval a formality. Whilst the recommendation to appoint these men has formed a key element of a broader plan to raise the standards of governance within Rusneftegaz that was first conceived two years ago, it should be noted that this proposal is the final component of that scheme, and now our management is wholly satisfied with the corporate ethics prevailing throughout our organization. Any inquiries regarding the prospective changes to the composition of this body or otherwise pertaining to our administrative policies must be directed via the conventional channels of telephone and email for a prompt reply. We necessitate your cooperation and understanding with this crucial matter. 

Rusneftegaz has published a provisional calendar for the forthcoming fiscal year, with the presentation of our consolidated financial statements on 4 April 2017 serving as the main highlight of what is set to be an eventful twelve months for us. The disclosure of this material is to be immediately followed by our annual general meeting, which is also scheduled to take place later in the same week, and should ultimately yield productive discussions with our key stakeholders regarding our short and long-term strategies. Presently, this conference is intended to be held on 7 April 2017, although this date may be subject to change if any subsequent announcements are made. In adherence with our established protocols, we have devised a strategy to continue to provide full quarterly production reports four weeks after the conclusion of each reporting period. However, it is crucial to note that there may be potential variances between the time this information is uploaded to our website and when this material is made available to our affiliated parties. 

​In more the more immediate future, it is worth noting that our capacity to respond to nonessential matters, including communications received via email and telephone, will be limited due to the staff vacations occurring through the Christmas and New Year holiday. This forthcoming disruption, spanning from 26 December 2016 and 9 January 2017, will only have an impact our administrative functions, and therefore will not have any bearing on our other operational activities. Therefore, it is imperative that all correspondences be submitted promptly to ensure a timely reply. Nevertheless, all messages received during this timeframe will be closely monitored, and ultimately attended to if deemed essential. Likewise, at the end of this period, we will do our utmost to address all these messages within one working day. The full preliminary calendar is available to view on our official website, and whilst all the aforementioned dates are liable to be altered by the board, any such adjustments are unlikely at this time. Any queries pertaining to this announcement, should be directed through the customary channels as soon as practical to do so, principally to ensure a response before our ability to do so is constrained. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in relation to this pertinent matter.

Rusneftegaz marked the end of the current year by hosting our annual awards ceremony in Moscow last Friday, where a large contingent of our personnel joined with our executives and directors to celebrate our achievements over the past twelve months. Overall, it has been an outstanding period for our organization, in which we have demonstrated strong and sustainable growth in key areas of our enterprise. Whilst we may not have recorded vast increases in revenues as a result of broadly stagnant commodity prices, we are expected to expand our profit margins following major reductions in our operating expenses. Part of this is directly attributable to the restructuring process we undertook in the summer, where we reorganized our administrative departments into a single entity under the control of our leadership. In the long term, this should ensure that we are a more efficient business, in which all strategic aims are aligned amongst our subsidiaries, affiliates and partners. During the evening, Aleksandr Filyurin, our Deputy Chief Executive Officer, gave this statement: 

“I am very pleased by what has been a very good year for Rusneftegaz. We have made excellent progress this year and are on course to meet all the targets that we set. This places us in a great position going into next year, where we will be able to continue with our plans to expand our operations further. To be direct, this is a great time to be working for this company, the plans we have are big and ambitious, and we will be reliant on our staff to help us do it. In a few years, Rusneftegaz will have been transformed into a far stronger company than it is today if our plans do come to fruition, which, to be fair, I expect them to. I also think it is a fitting time to place on record my congratulations to all the members of our team who have received prizes tonight, all of them are worthy winners. We need all our staff to be willing to go above and beyond the ordinary call of duty if we are going to do this, and to be direct, I think we do.” 

On the night itself, the headline prize was awarded to Maksimilian Smirnov, who was named as our employee of the year. Over the past six years, he has established himself as one of our finest engineers, with a notably remarkable capacity to repair any machinery in a rapid and steadfast manner. This was particularly vital earlier this year, when a backup diesel generator failed and required complete dismantling to find the fault. Within a matter of hours, the aforementioned individual managed to diagnose the issue and improvise a replacement part, restoring power to a remote production site. On a similar note, our colleague Filipp Igantiev was chosen as our young employee of the year after he authored a number of papers and essays for his studies that were ultimately reviewed to critical acclaim. Not only did he finish first in his class, but he likewise initiated an extensive volume of additional research without assistance from any of his peers. Although these endeavors are both exceptional and noteworthy in their own right, we are extremely thankful to each and every member of our workforce for their efforts in helping us construct a corporation with an exciting and prosperous future. We vow to continue to do our utmost to reward these deeds, and hope that it is necessary to do so for many decades to come.