The Moscow Arbitration Court invalidated the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) regarding the cost of transshipment of the Varandey terminal (owned by Lukoil), an Interfax correspondent from the courtroom said. The court session was held in a closed hearing in connection with trade secrets.
The FAS intends to challenge this court decision, the agency’s representative in court told the agency.
Rosneft told TASS that they did not agree with the court decision. “After the preparation of the judicial act in full, it will be analyzed and an appeal filed in the manner prescribed by law,” the company added.
In December 2018, the FAS filed an administrative case against Lukoil due to complaints about the transshipment price at the Varandey terminal. Rosneft complained to the department that transshipment prices were not economically justified, and Lukoil itself enjoyed a dominant position. Through the Varandey terminal, both companies supply all oil from the joint Trebs and Titov project (production in 2017 - 1.9 million tons). The field is owned by Bashneft-Pole, in which Rosneft, after the purchase of Bashneft, controls 74.9%, Lukoil - 25.1%.
In March 2019, the FAS decided in favor of Rosneft, Lukoil appealed against it.
“The client always doesn’t like something,” Vagit Alekperov, co-owner and president of Lukoil, commented on the initiation of the case. “They [FAS] have been investigating for a long time, for God's sake. We have a terminal, we have a client. The client always does not like something, he has the right to appeal, ”he said.
Lukoil offered Rosneft several options for resolving the situation. “We offered to give them oil at the Usa metering station of Transneft, to replace our oil with Trebs and Titov oil ... to link the transshipment price formula to the volume of production [at Trebs and Titov], as is done around the world but that didn’t suit them either, ”Alekperov noted. The company, according to him, provided the FAS with documents “justifying the price” of transshipment at Varandey.