Since there is a considerable amount of technological oil in the LRT owned pipeline Polotsk-Ventspils that the court has seized for the benefit of the Belarusian Company „Polocktransneft Druzhba”, the Latvian company for the past few weeks has actively appealed to the Belarusian side to pass the court ruling for execution and to cover the storage expenses of the seized oil. Besides LRT has requested „Polocktransneft Druzhba” to ensure storage of 109 thousand tons of oil somewhere else not using the infrastructure of LRT for that, which must be adjusted for new commercial activities.

 

However, “Polocktransneft Druzhba” has not officially responded to the LRT request to move the oil seized for its benefit, and neither has carried out any activities to execute the court ruling regarding seizure of 109 996.08 tons of oil, namely no bailiff has carried out any activities for seizure of oil. Thus, although the court ruling regarding seizure of the technological oil is valid it has not been executed. In accordance with the valid legislation – as long as the court ruling has not been submitted for execution and a sworn bailiff has not carried out necessary activities for seizure of property, the defendant, in this case – LRT is not restricted to handle the property mentioned in the court ruling.

 

Considering the fact that “Polocktransneft Druzhba” has not for a longer time expressed its interest in the court ruling regarding execution of seizure of the technological oil, LRT submitted a repeated application to the court requesting to cancel the applied collateral – seizure of oil. LRT is of the opinion that further maintenance of the seizure is unjustified, since it is obvious that “Polocktransneft Druzhba” does not want or is financially unable to ensure seizure of such a large amount of oil and therewith covering of storage expenses. Under these circumstances, when “Polocktransneft Druzhba” protractedly has failed to comply with the court ruling, maintenance of the collateral is unjustified and excessively infringes the LRT interests causing it substantial losses.

 

LatRosTrans Ltd is the largest Latvian-Russian joint venture in the Baltic States. The Russian partner – joint stock company Transnefteprodukt (subsidiary of Transneft) owns 34% of the company’s shares, while 66% of the shares are owned by joint stock company Ventspils nafta (NASDAQ OMX RIGA: VNF1R).

 

Public Relations Manager

JSC Ventspils nafta

Tel.: +371-29267454, +371-67715914

E-mail: ilze.nagla@vnafta.lv