Nikolai Vorobei buying all Belarusian oil refineries

Interservice firm involved in oil products smuggling has become a new owner of Vioska-EmulBit bitumen plant.

Interservice replaced Moscow company Nafta-Stroi, who has owned the plant since last October. A scandalous story of privatization of the enterprise acquires new shapes and outlines.

The news that Vioska-EmulBit does not belong to the Moscow firm, which bought Belarus's biggest bitumen producer at $30m last year, was said in June by head of the Minsk region executive committee Barys Batura at a meeting with dwellers of the Cherven district.

Answering a question of Cherven newspaper Rayonny Vesnik about the future of the biggest enterprise in the district, the region head said: “We managed to sell the plant to one of the biggest Belarusian private oil traders – Interservice company. The deal was already registered in the state cadastral agency. The company will pay off the debts the plant had in the last few years. The plant will produce more than 10,000 tons of bitumen in the nearest month. The company plans to invest about $10m in the plant during the next two years and gain $50m of currency revenue.”

It's unclear was happened to an offer of Russian Nafta-Stroi company, which won an auction of Minskoblgosimuschestvo property fund in October (the price grew from 3.8 billion Belarusian rubles to 265 billion) and signed a sales and purchase agreement with the Minsk region executive committee a month later.

Before the auction, a group of Vioska EmulBit top managers headed by the Golubkovsky family and Minsk developer Igor Rimski were considered to be main buyers of the enterprise. However, the price offered at the auction by Nafta-Stroi appeared to be too high for them.

Vadim Bubnov, a representative of Nafta-Stroi in Belarus, announced company's plans in the country after signing the agreement. “A sales and purchase agreement has already been signed. We will be able to discuss details after completing formalities. What I can say right now is that we plan large-scale modernization and development of the enterprise,” the Nafta-Stroi representative also announced a visit of company president Igor Lakshinski to Belarus.

No one knows why Nafta-Stroi changed its plans in the last six months. Experts from Yezhednevnik do not rule out that Belarusian businessmen may have stood behind the company.

Interservice was founded by businessman Nikolai Vorobei. Interservice already obtained the asset group of the Navapolatsk Plant of Protein and Vitamin Concentrates on a presidential decree this year. In late June, JSC Navapolatsk oil refinery was registered to replace the idle giant of Soviet microbiology. Under the agreement with the government, the oil trader is to invest about $270m until 2021 ($30m a year) in construction of a modern oil refinery on the base of the plant. As said above, Interservice will also invest 10m dollars in Vioska EmulBit in the next two years.

Volumes of investments look serious. Does Navapolatsk businessman Nikolai Vorobei have these resources? According to information from sources, more significant Belarusian businessmen can stand behind Interservice. The name of senator and Amkodor share holder Alexander Shakutin is often mentioned in this regard.

As charter97.org website already reported, Nikolai Vorobei's company is involved in oil products smuggling to the EU. Interservice received petroleum products from Tatbelnefteproduct, a subsidiary of Russian Tarneft, and exports diesel fuel to the Baltic countries as T and L solvents and M100 bitumen as anticorrosive agents.