MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. The Antipinsky Oil Refinery and its property will be sold at a public auction as part of the bankruptcy procedure, Maxim Andriasov, the plant's general director, said in an interview with TASS.

"It is very likely that the court will introduce bankruptcy proceedings, which will end with the sale of property at a public auction. Accordingly, our task is quite simple — to make sure that the plant continues to operate and maintain its value," Andriasov noted.

According to him, the debt of the refinery to creditors exceeds $5 bln. In particular, the debt to its largest creditor, Sberbank, amounts to $3.2 bln.

"The net loss of the Antipinsky Oil Refinery in 2018, managed by [the former plant general director] Gennady Lisovichhenko, is 35.7 billion rubles. In general, the plant’s debt exceeds $5 billion. Sberbank's share is $3.2 bln," Andriasov said.

Problems with Antipinsky Refinery

Oil supplies to the Antipinsky Refinery in the Tyumen Region were repeatedly halted throughout 2018, particularly in December, due to the absence of route orders. Transneft completely halted oil supplies to the refinery on May 16 of the current year.

The refinery had to suspend its operations in May 2019 in view of a challenging financial situation and went into receivership by Sberbank, its major lender. On May 18, the refinery filed a bankruptcy petition to the Arbitration Court of the Tyumen Region.

The refinery was the main asset of the New Stream group, whose chairman and founder, Dmitry Mazurov, was detained in July as part of a criminal fraud case.

Arrest

On July 14, the New Stream Group reported that its owner Mazurov was detained on July 13 at the Sheremetyevo Airport, as a suspect, following the arrest petition filed by the prosecution. According to the Kommersant newspaper, Mazurov is accused of embezzling credit funds from Sberbank, Promsvyazbank and Absolut Bank for a total of more than $3 billion.

He has been detained until September 12. Mazurov denies the charges.

Earlier, Sberbank head Herman Gref filed a complaint, based on which the criminal case was launched. "Sberbank has issued a statement with the law enforcement on numerous uncovered facts of illegal actions carried out by the controlling shareholder of Antipinsky Oil Refinery Mazurov and the former Director General of Antipinsky Oil Refinery Lisovichchenko, which fall under the definition of 'fraud on a large scale committed by an organized group.' Based on this statement, law enforcement agencies opened a criminal case under part 4 of article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code," the bank reports.

The credit organization also revealed "numerous facts of Antipinsky Oil Refinery's entering into agreements with affiliated intermediaries on non-market conditions, including export contracts, as a result of which the company suffered significant damage and substantial amount of money was transferred abroad."

Mazurov owned the Antipinsky Oil Refinery with a capacity of 9 million tonnes of oil per year through the New Stream. In May 2019, due to the tough financial situation and consequent disruptions in oil supplies that began in 2018, the refinery was forced to suspend work and go under the control of the main creditor — Sberbank.