Rosneft proposes classifying parts of its annual accounting and investment activity report

Russian state run oil firm Rosneft says it needs to exclude information that constitutes trade secrets from its annual report. Rosneft also wants uniform reporting requirements for both state owned and private companies.

Rosneft vice president Larisa Kalanda sent these requests on February 20, 2016, in a letter to the Deputy Minister for Economic Development, Nicholas Podguzov. A copy of the letter was recently sent to Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.

Rosneft argues that classified information should include target values for longterm investment progams, sale or transfer of non-core assets, funds directed to the completion of investment projects, and data on Rosneft investments that have profit returns higher than 10 percent a year.

The vice president says state owned firms must report more than what is demanded of private companies, which puts Rosneft at a disadvantage.

Crucially, these requests closely follow a letter sent by the heads of both Gazprom and Rosneft to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. This joint letter argues that public disclosure of business deals made by state oil and gas companies may be used by the US and EU to verify sanctions compliance and, therefore, to potentially fine companies working with Russian oil and gas firms or to further tighten sanctions.