VILNIUS - Yukos' fate in Lithuania seemed to be sealed last week when oil industry officials in Russia announced that the oil company was not granted any export quotas to the Mazeikiu refinery for the second quarter of the calendar year.
Yukos, which has been under investigation for fraud and failure to pay taxes, will be allowed to deliver some 338,800 tons of crude to the oil terminal in Butinge, which is also part of Lithuania's Mazeikiu Nafta complex, the Interfax news agency reported.
Mazeikiu Nafta officials refused to comment on the report, particularly since the export schedule, which was drawn up by the Ministry of Fuel and Energy, is not final and has yet to be confirmed by the government.
Interfax also reported that a number of other Russian crude producers - Lukoil, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Sibneft, Slavneft, Surgut-neftegaz and Tatneft 's have been allotted a combined quota of 1.8 million tons of deliveries to the Mazeikiu refinery, Lithuania's largest taxpayer.
Yukos owns a 53.7 percent stake in Mazeikiu Nafta, while the Lithuanian government holds a 40.6 percent stake. But the recent spat of supply problems has top Lithuanian officials scrambling to find an alternative ownership structure that would guarantee steady crude deliveries.
In accordance with current contractual obligations, Yukos should supply some 4.8 million tons of crude to the Lithuanian refinery, the only one in the Baltics, per year.
A source in Yukos told Vedomosti, a Russian language business daily, that by excluding the company from the export schedule to Lithuania in the second quarter, the Russian government was trying to squeeze Yukos out of the Baltic state and force it to give up control over Mazeikiu Nafta. The source added that Yukos was holding informal purchasing talks with Lukoil and TNK-BP.
The Lithuanian government must approve any sale of a controlling interest in the refinery.
Representatives of Russia's private oil companies have been reluctant to comment on how they would react should Yukos decide to sell Mazeikiu Nafta, but Lukoil officials have admitted that the Lithuanian refinery would be an attractive asset on the company's balance sheet.
Independent analysts speculated that those companies that begin providing oil would have the best chances to acquire a controlling interest in Mazeikiu Nafta.
Mazeikiu Nafta said it had targeted 9 million tons of refined oil this year (total capacity is 12 million tons), with another 5 million tons of crude to be exported via the Butinge terminal. The refinery processed 8.66 million tons of crude oil during 2004, a rise of 21 percent year-on-year. The volume of refined oil increased by 4.6 percent year-on-year to 1.4 million tons in the first two months of this year.
