The biggest Latvian-Russian joint venture in the Baltic states, LatRosTrans (LRT), positively assesses the plan of the Latvian government to establish a working group for deciding an issue regarding the contribution made by the Latvian state to the share capital of the enterprise – land with the right of permanent use.

In 1994, the Republic of Latvia together with the Russian Federation founded a joint venture of the two states – LatRosTrans, to the share capital of which the Latvian side, among other things, contributed the land under the oil product pipeline and its structures with the right of permanent use. The total contribution of the Latvian state amounted to 71 million LVL, including land with the right of permanent use – 49.5 million LVL, for which the Latvian state received 66% of the enterprise shares of capital.

As a result of numerous changes in the regulatory enactments, the contribution of the Latvian state at present has an ambiguous legal status.

“We are pleased that after the exchange of letters for more than a year with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice and the Prime Minister’s Office we have approached a constructive solution – establishment of a working group the aim of which will be to prepare proposals for the Latvian government. We are confident that the working group will include high level state officials in order to find a solution for eliminating the legal defect of the contribution as soon as possible,” – says LRT CEO Igors Stepanovs, emphasizing at the same time that the solution of this issue is critically important in the context of the future development plans of the enterprise.

I. Stepanovs points out that “at present LRT’s main pipelines cross more than 1700 land plots belonging to different land owners – therefore, this issue is currently important not only for the enterprise, but also for all the land owners, and the government needs to solve it.”

Information about LatRosTrans
LLC LatRosTrans owns two crude oil pipelines in the territory of the Republic of Latvia – Polotsk-Mazeikiai and Polotsk-Ventspils, which have not been used in recent years in the company’s commercial activity. In turn, the Polotsk – Ventspils oil product pipeline belonging to LLC LatRosTrans is actively used at present for transportation of diesel fuel.
LLC LatRosTrans is the biggest Latvian-Russian joint venture in the Baltic states. The Russian partner – OJSC AK Transnefteprodukt (daughter company of JSC АК Transneft) – owns 34% of the company’s shares, while 66% of the shares belong to the joint-stock company Ventspils nafta (NASDAQ OMX RIGA: VNF1R).

Ilze Nagla
Head of PR Department
JSC Ventspils nafta
Tel.: +371-29267454, +371-67715914
E-mail: ilze.nagla@vnafta.lv