UPDATE

Director General of SC Petrotel- Lukoil SA Ploiesti, Andrey Bogdanov, was placed under judicial control, being prosecuted for tax evasion and money laundering, announced on Tuesday representatives of the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal Ploiesti.

Initial text

Petrotel-Lukoil begins preparation procedures for resuming operations, as a consequence of hearings kept at the Public Prosecutor office at Ploiești Appeal Court and lifting of precautionary measures (seizure of bank accounts and commercial stocks of good), announces a company’s press statement.

The union leaders and the general manager of Petrotel – Lukoil have asked Prime Minister Victor Ponta support for unlocking company’s accounts, saying that in this way it can pay the salaries of 2,500 employees, can purchase materials can pay suppliers.

“Given the situation created by the raid dated October 2, 2014 made by representatives of Romania’s investigative bodies (prosecutors, intelligence officers, inspector from the General Directorate of Customs, inspector from the Regional Bureau for Fraud) to SC Petrotel Lukoil SA and other four companies in Teleajen Platform, we respectfully ask you to support us to ensure the continuation of the business activities of our society”, reads the letter sent to the Prime Minister’s office, quoted by Mediafax.

In the letter, the union at Petrotel-Lukoil and Lukoil Trade Union of Romania said: “We do not oppose to the ongoing investigation, it is normal for law enforcement to work for compliance with the law and to protect state interests. But, due to frozen accounts, we cannot make purchases of chemicals, we cannot pay suppliers and contractors and even employees’ wages, which would make more than 2,500 employees on the platform to remain without work, increasing the number of those unemployed. “

In another letter, received Monday at the office of Prime Minister, General Manager of Petrotel-Lukoil, Andrei Bogdanov, presented the financial results and the fiscal behavior of the company, stating: “Please support us to restart Petrotel-Lukoil refinery and to stabilize the economic situation within legislation boundaries and to note that Lukoil would have never risked an investment of over a billion dollars for an amount of 230 million euros, the image damages and consequences being extremely large.”

Petrotel-Lukoil refinery ceased production and commercial activity due to sequestration applied to raw materials and crude oil by the prosecutors. Lukoil representatives have previously notified the Environmental Guard that it will stop the refinery in Ploiești, without giving a reason and without giving a deadline about restarting the refinery, keeping the authorities in the dark about possible layoffs or technical unemployment.

Instead, a day after the searches, deputy director of the refinery has signed and submitted to the County Employment Agency (CEA) Prahova a request urging the release of a certificate attesting that the CEA database contains qualified persons as civil constructions engineer and civil and industrial constructions researchers, as refinery would like to hire such specialists, informs Mediafax.

Prosecutor of Ploiești Court of Appeal decided the seizure of products owned by Petrotel- Lukoil refinery in the deposits and pipelines of Oil Terminal, up to the amount of 1.039 billion lei. The information was submitted to Bucharest Stock Exchange by Oil Terminal, stating that this significantly affects its own business, Lukoil transactions representing over 34% of the turnover of the Oil Terminal at the end of September.
Another company affected by stopping the refinery is Oltchim, where oxo-alcohols production sections, restarted three weeks ago, it stopped functioning.

“The situation at Petrotel-Lukoil affected our oxo-alcohols section. Oltchim is dependent on the feedstock – Propylene purchased from Lukoil branches in Romania and Bulgaria. Today (Monday) it was a discussion with the chemical plant’s management, with Lukoil representatives and government representatives to unlock the situation and return to the production capacity of over 30%”, said Oltchim union leader, Mihai Diculoiu, quoted economica.net.