VILNIUS - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has not abandoned its intention to make an investment in Mazeikiu Nafta (Mazeikiai Oil), the downstream oil company controlled by Russia's Yukos, officials said this week.
Negotiations over the EBRD's investment, which have been at a standstill for approximately half a year, may resume in the coming months, Deputy Economy Minister Nerijus Eidukevicius said after his recent meeting in London with Peter Reininger, a senior EBRD official.
"I informed the EBRD representative that Mazeikiu Nafta's management board is to approve the concern's strategic development plan until 2009 within a month. The plan will be then presented to the bank. The talks cannot continue until the bank has received this plan," Eidukevicius said.
The three-way talks between the government, the EBRD and Yukos started last year, and the last round took place in London in October.
Officials said last year that the government had plans to sell around 10 percent of shares in Mazeikiu Nafta to the bank, which was created in the early 1990s by Western governments to promote investment in the emerging private sector in Eastern Europe.
It was believed then that a deal could be closed in 2004.
In addition to a possible equity investment, the EBRD is also willing to refinance the government's loans to Mazeikiu Nafta, amounting to $288 million, and to provide financing for Mazeikiu Nafta's $400 million reconstruction program.
Yukos owns a 53.7 percent stake in Mazeikiu Nafta and is the operator of the oil complex, which is comprised of the Mazeikiu-based refinery, a pipeline system and the Butinge crude oil terminal. The Lithuanian government holds 40.66 percent of the enterprise's stock.
Mazeikiu Nafta reported a net profit - its first in several years - of 220.9 million litas (64 million euros) for the full year 2003 under U.S. GAAP. The company has forecast a net profit of $20 million for 2004.
