Witness Testimony Summary: Nailya Batyrova
Bio:
Ms. Batyrova works at Transneft and is a deputy to the director of Transneft's department of transportation, audit and quality control of crude oil. She heads the section responsible for the scheduling and execution of crude oil shipments.
Testimony Date:
Testimony Summary:
Ms. Batyrova testified about the procedures and process by which crude oil companies initiate and ship crude oil through Transneft's pipeline system. She testified that all major crude oil producers, including Yuganskneftegaz, Samaraneftegaz and Tomskneft, conclude annual agreements with Transneft for the transportation of crude oil. Ms. Batyrova's primary responsibilities are to ensure that requests to route crude oil shipments are correctly drafted and executed.
Ms. Batyrova spent some time explaining procedures surrounding shipment initiation based on a routing order by an oil company. The order itself would contain detailed information on who ordered the shipment, whose crude oil was to be shipped, the quantity and the destination it was going to.
On cross-examination Ms. Batyrova explained to the court what the terms listed on routing orders such as "shipper," "producer" and "owner" meant. Ms. Batyrova testified that when an order was placed by a holding company, like YUKOS, "shipper" and "producer" could be two distinct entities.
Ms. Batyrova explained detailed procedures that allowed her section to know in-depth information on quantities of crude oil that were transferred into Transneft's pipeline on a daily basis. Ms. Batyrova testified about the implementation of those procedures and her access to information on crude oil shipments from crude oil producers.
Ms. Batyrova, after explaining that daily logs contained information on crude oil transferred by crude oil producers, testified that a crude oil producer transferring "zero" tons of crude oil simply could not have happened. This applied to all three YUKOS production subsidiaries. According to Ms. Batyrova, YUKOS' practice of shipping crude oil was not different from any other oil company.
Overall, Ms. Batyrova described a closely monitored system of crude oil shipments. Ms. Batyrova explained that Transneft was always in possession of information about where the crude oil came from and where its destination was.