By Vladimir Soldatkin and Anna Hirtenstein
MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) -Lukoil’s international operations faced mounting disruptions on Friday as a U.S. deadline for companies to cut off business with the Russian oil company looms and after a hoped-for sale of the operations to Swiss trader Gunvor collapsed.
The U.S. Treasury, which would have to approve any sale as Lukoil is under U.S. sanctions, on Thursday labelled Gunvor a Kremlin “puppet” and signalled its opposition to the deal.
The United States sanctioned Lukoil and larger rival Rosneft last month as part of President Donald Trump’s push to get Russia to the negotiating table over Ukraine.
“The stark Treasury message is a signal to the market that those gambling on a speedy normalization of the Russian energy trade will be disappointed,” said Geoffrey Pyatt, senior managing director at McLarty Associates and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for energy resources.
Analysts and oil executives said Lukoil will likely be forced to sell the assets at steep discounts by Treasury’s November 21 deadline for companies to halt business ties with the firm, possibly to a Western major.
“Now every subsequent buyer will demand a bigger discount than the deal with Gunvor implied — and in many ways, perhaps, that’s exactly what the Americans were counting on,” Igor Yushkov, a professor at the Financial University of the Russian government, said.
MOLDOVA ASKS FOR EXEMPTIONS
In the latest fallout from the restrictions, Moldovan energy minister Dorin Junghietu said on Friday that Lukoil will have to stop its operations in the country from November 21.
According to the minister, Lukoil owns a number of gasoline stations, supplies the oil market, and is the private owner of the airport’s only fuel storage, supply, and aircraft refuelling facility.
He said Moldova has requested a temporary exemption from Washington for Lukoil to operate in the country until it resolves the issue, so that the supply of fuel to Moldova is not disrupted.
He also said Moldova had decided to reject Lukoil’s offer to divest its assets and sell the airport infrastructure to another company.
Bulgarian authorities have in recent days sped up moves to hand control of Lukoil’s Burgas refinery to a special manager. Ruling party politicians have proposed a law which would enable this manager, if appointed, to sell the refinery without requiring Lukoil’s consent.
LUKOIL’S FUEL CHAIN IN FINLAND IS RUNNING DRY
In Finland, petrol station chain Teboil, owned by Lukoil, is running out of fuel as the U.S. sanctions against its parent company prevented it from doing business, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported on Friday, citing a Teboil spokesperson.
“We are running down our fuel stocks, which means some stations are already out of certain fuel types and the number of such stations is growing daily,” Toni Flyckt, Teboil’s marketing and communications director, told the newspaper.
KREMLIN DEFENDS LUKOIL’S INTERESTS
The Kremlin said Lukoil’s international interests should be respected after Gunvor had withdrawn its bid for the assets.
Asked about the development, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was commercial matter and related to what he called illegal U.S. sanctions on Moscow, but that it was important that Lukoil’s interests were protected.
“We believe that all legitimate interests of a major international company, including a Russian one, like Lukoil, in terms of international trade and economic relations, must be respected,” said Peskov.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov, Anastasiia Malenko and Anna Hirtenstein; writing by Lucy Papachristou; editing by Andrew Osborn and Jason Neely)
