Russia’s Rosneft Strikes to Promote its German Refinery Belongings

Russia’s state-controlled oil large Rosneft has launched a gross sales course of looking for to divest its German property, which embrace a majority stake in a significant refinery that’s at present underneath German trusteeship, a spokesperson for Germany’s economic system ministry instructed Bloomberg on Friday.

In September 2022, a couple of months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany put the native enterprise of Russia’s Rosneft under trusteeship, handing management over the Schwedt refinery to the nation’s power market regulator.  

“With the trusteeship, the risk to the safety of power provide is countered and a necessary basis stone is about for the preservation and way forward for the Schwedt website,” the German authorities mentioned on the time.

Schwedt is the fourth-largest refinery in Germany, it’s 54% owned by the Russian state oil large, and it will get its oil from the Druzhba oil pipeline from Russia. The Schwedt refinery provides 90% of the gasoline wants of Germany’s capital metropolis Berlin.  

The trusteeship of Rosneft’s property has been prolonged twice for a interval of six months, and the present six-month interval of trusteeship expires on March 10, 2024.

“Rosneft Russia has now said that it has began a gross sales course of and desires to finalize this throughout the interval of an additional trusteeship extension,” the spokesperson of the economic system ministry mentioned in an announcement carried by Bloomberg.

“We’ll announce any choices in good time, together with a potential extension of the trusteeship,” the spokesperson added.

Final month, authorities sources instructed Reuters that Germany was contemplating a nationalization of Rosneft’s German property, together with the stake within the Schwedt refinery.

Nonetheless, at the moment’s feedback might recommend {that a} nationalization was not a most well-liked possibility.

In accordance with the economic system ministry’s spokesperson, the first objective of Germany in these affairs is to safe power provide and particularly the continued operations on the Schwedt oil refinery.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Extra High Reads From Oilprice.com:

• EU Mulls Extending Steel Safeguard Measures Amid Flood of Imports
• Breakthrough Biotech Paves Way for Green Fuel Production Boom
• U.S. Seeks Semiconductor Supremacy with New Funding Initiatives