JSC Antipinsky Refinery

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Coordinates: 57°06′00.1″N 65°45′31.4″E / 57.100028°N 65.758722°E / 57.100028; 65.758722
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Antipinsky Refinery
Coordinates
57°06′00.1″N 65°45′31.4″E / 57.100028°N 65.758722°E / 57.100028; 65.758722
Refinery details
OperatorRusInvest[1]
Owner(s)RusInvest[1]
Commissioned2006 (2006)
Capacity180,000[2] bbl/d (29,000 m3/d)

The Antipinsky Refinery (Russian: Антипинский НПЗ,

oil pipelines and the Tyumen-3 pumping station.[3] It is amongst one of the larger refineries in Russia, participating on the Urals and West Siberian oil market, where it is the only refinery in operation in the Ural Federal District.[4] As of 2022, it is Russia's largest privately owned oil processing plant, with a total processing capacity of nine million tonnes of crude oil per year. It is also the only oil refinery constructed in Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[1][5]

Antipisnky has grown rapidly since it first began operation, with an almost nine-fold increase in production rates from the plant's inception in 2006. However, this expansion was largely as a result of debt from both Russian and European lenders, and by the late 2010s the refinery was dependent financially on regular borrowing and prepayments from customers.[6] The owner of the refinery was declared bankrupt in 2019, and both the chief executive officer and majority shareholder Dmitry Mazurov were arrested for fraud. The refinery ceased operations for three months following the arrests, before production resumed under new ownership.[7]

History

Whilst the construction of the refinery itself began in 2004, the majority of its equipment was originally acquired by Transneft from Petrofac in the mid-1990s. These elements, which formed part of a modular refinery, were not ultimately used after being held in customs clearance for approximately five years.[1] Eventually, the components for the refinery were sold by the Russian Fund for Federal Property following an internal review of Transneft's business, which determined that refining was outside the scope of its operations. The only bidder in the auction was New Stream, a company controlled Gennadiy Lisovichenko, a prosecutor, and the businessman Dmitry Mazurov, an acquaintance of Vladimir Putin, who in 2016 owned 80% of the share capital through a Cypriot-registered company named Vikay Industrial Limited.[8]

A share purchase option was exercised in 2016 by Nikolai Egorov, a classmate of Putin at

Sergei Sobyanin.[9] Both Sobyanin and Transneft fully endorsed and provided assistance with the building of Antipinsky, the latter was particularly interested in the prospect of a refinery located on the trunk oil pipelines adjacent to both major rail tracks and highways.[8] Construction of the refinery was completed two years after it commenced, with the first phase of the facility beginning operations in November 2006 with a capacity of 400,000 tonnes of oil per annum. An upgrade in 2008 increased the capacity further to 740,000 tonnes per year before the second area of the refinery was then completed in May 2010.[3]

The start of operations in the second phase resulted in Antipinky being able to refine 2.75 million tonnes of crude oil per annum, and a modernization program finalized in November 2012 increased this even further to 3.58 million tonnes.[3] By 2013, total production at Antipinsky amounted to 3 million tons per year, with the operations undertaken at the site gradually increasing in complexity. This included the development of a fuel oil deep conversion unit, a delay tar coking unit and reaching a refining depth of 97%.[10] In September of the same year, the site also received considerable media interest following a visit from singer-songwriter Grigory Leps, who expressed interest in oil production. Throughout this period, Mazurov spoke optimistically about the future, stating that "we will be the only private independent oil refining enterprise in Russia. Our ambitious plan is that there will be no other serious privately-owned oil refinery in the country."[11]

However, in 2018 New Stream defaulted on a payment after it had accrued debt worth $5 billion after the acquisition of numerous other energy assets, including the Mari refinery in the

vacuum gas oil to other companies as a result of a lawsuit by VTB Commodities Trading.[15] In response to the order, a spokesman for Antipinsky said: “Unfortunately, in 2019 a string of traders, including VTB Commodities Trading, in violation of agreements that had been previously reached, stopped providing advances for the purchase of petroleum products. This led to a decrease in the volume of purchased oil and to the plant stopping its processing on April 26.”[6]

Later, it also emerged that New Stream entered into a contract to sell 1,020 tons of

Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow on suspicion of assaulting a prostitute and embezzling loans from Sberbank, Promsvyazbank and Absolut Bank worth in excess of $3 billion, although this value was later downgraded to a total of $30 million.[16] Mazurov plead not guilty to all charges.[17] Production later resumed at Antipinsky in July 2019 after three months of inactivity.[7]

Of the $5 billion owed, $3.2 billion was due to be paid to New Stream’s largest

international arrest warrant was issued for the company's co-founder Gennadiy Lisovichenko for fraudulently selling the cargo of a train for almost half of its market value, with the former director later being arrested in Italy.[20][21] The insolvency of New Stream led to the new owners forming a joint venture with the Azerbaijani oil firm SOCAR, who took a minority share of 9.6% in the refinery.[22]

Sberbank made Antipinsky available for sale immediately after becoming the new majority owner of the plant, mostly due to the considerable financial losses incurred by the refinery, but also due to their lack of interest in entering the petroleum market.[23][24] Prior to the sale, SOCAR announced that it had no interest in taking control of the business and promptly terminated its partnership with Sberbank.[25] Whilst major oil companies, including Lukoil and Russneft, were believed to be interested in purchasing the business, the refinery received no bids from potential buyers, and Sberbank ultimately included three oil fields in the lot to increase its salability.[1] At an auction held on May 18, 2020, Antipinsky was sold to the only bidder, RusInvest, a company controlled by the Ukrainian businessman Anatoly Yablonsky, who previously fled Ukraine following charges of tax fraud.[26][1] The total value of the deal was 110 billion rubles, or approximately $1.5 billion.[27]

Since the takeover, RusInvest has reported nominal revenues of less than $1m for the refinery, in contrast to the peak of its production when it announced turnover of $5.8bn. As a result, the Antipinsky refinery was regarded by the Russian Federal Taxation Service as a small enterprise in 2021.[1] That same year, the refinery owners announced that contracts had been signed with Gunvor, Trafigura and Vitol for the long-term supply of naphtha and diesel from Baltic Sea ports.[28] However, on January 4, 2022, a major fire occurred at the fuel oil deep conversion unit, with over one hundred firemen deployed to extinguish the blaze which was over one hundred meters high.[29] Although no casualties were reported, production continued to be disrupted at the refinery for many months thereafter.[30][31][2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Is This Russia's Most Peculiar Oil Deal?". oilprice.com. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Processing in Russia declines in March". spglobal.com. Retrieved 4 May 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "Antipinsky Oil Refinery, Tyumen". hydrocarbons-technology.com. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  4. ^ "Largest Independent Russian Refinery Back In Action After Months Of Inactivity". oilprice.com. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  5. ^ "Russian court recognises bankruptcy of Antipinsky refinery - Ifax". reuters.com. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  6. ^ a b "Russia's Antipinsky refinery files for bankruptcy". reuters.com. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Largest Independent Russian Refinery Back In Action After Months Of Inactivity". oilprice.com. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  8. ^ a b c "Расследование РБК: как знакомые президента и мэра Москвы занялись нефтью". rbc.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  9. ^ "Однокурсник Путина оказался владельцем 20% Антипинского НПЗ". forbes.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  10. ^ "Дмитрий Мазуров: Антипинский НПЗ достигает рекордной глубины". 24smi.org (in Russian). Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  11. ^ "Антипинский НПЗ вышел на рекордные объемы производства". vesti.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  12. ^ a b "SOCAR becomes minority shareholder of Russia's Antipinsky Oil Refinery". azernews.az. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  13. ^ "Russia's Antipinsky refinery says oil flows to plant will resume shortly". reuters.com (in Russian). Retrieved 10 December 2018.
  14. ^ a b c "Крупнейший независимый нефтепереработчик прекратил работу". vedomosti.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  15. ^ "Exclusive: London court orders asset freeze for Russia's Antipinsky oil refinery - Document". reuters.com. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  16. ^ "Ex-owner of Russia's largest independent oil refinery arrested in Moscow". reuters.com. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  17. ^ "Дмитрию Мазурову нашли исполнителя". kommersant.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  18. ^ "Sberbank Group receives right to ownership of stocks of Antipinsky Oil Refinery's parent company". sberbank.ru. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
  19. ^ "Troubled Russian refinery seeks for bankruptcy of its former head's gas company". rapsinews.com. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  20. ^ "Former CEO of troubled Russian refinery arrested in absentia". rapsinews.com. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  21. ^ "Экс-главу "Антипинского НПЗ" задержали в Италии". pravo.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  22. ^ "SOCAR acquires stake in JV in control of Russian refinery". reuters.com. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  23. ^ "Russia's Sberbank says not to be future owner of Antipinsky refinery". reuters.com. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  24. ^ "UPDATE 1-Russia's Sberbank in talks to sell Antipinsky refinery - CEO". reuters.com. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  25. ^ "SAzerbaijan's SOCAR withdraws from management of Russia's Antipinsky oil refinery". thetribune.com. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  26. ^ "Rusinvest acquires 7.5 Mt/year Antipinsky refinery in Russia". enerdata.net. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  27. ^ "Russia sells largest independent oil refinery in bankruptcy case". reuters.com. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  28. ^ "Gunvor, Trafigura and Vitol buy oil products from Russia's Antipinsky plant". nasdaq.com. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  29. ^ "Pożar w rosyjskiej rafinerii. Słup ognia miał sto metrów". wp.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  30. ^ "Fire extinguished at Russia's Antipinsky oil refinery". reuters.com. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  31. ^ "Russia's Antipinsky refinery to reduce production in Jan after fire: sources". zawya.com. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
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