BNN reports, that Uldis Augulis who is the latvian Minister of Transport has called LITASCO and Ventbunkers to a meeting to resolve the current situation - the blocked Ventbunkers terminal and the blocked latvian railway system. LITASCO was represented by Mr. Andrey Polyakov.

The Minister stated, that if LITASCO does not lift their fuel from the Ventbunkers tanks, the merchandise will be nationialized and sold elsewhere. So finally LITASCO agreed to send their ship (waiting outside the harbor) to pick up the oil.

This does not resolve the whole situation as still thousands of - in the mean time fully frozen - railcars loaded with oil are waiting for discharge - distributed all over Latvia.

With the blocking of the Ventbunkers facilites, LITASCO - a daughter company of LUKOIL - has tried to force Ventbunkers to continue their contract for 2011.

Read the full article in Baltic News Network.

Here you can find the original Ventbunkers press release: 20110214-VBU eng 14.02.2011.

The history of this conflict reads like crime novel. In 2010 Ventbunkers requests the payment of 20 mio. $ for services from LITASCO. LITASCO says, they have already paid - but are not willing to disclose where the money went. The money has never arrived on the Ventbunkers bank accounts. Mr. Aivars Lembergs also says, that there might have been special agreements so that the money went "elsewhere".

As Ventbunkers found, that the prices charged to LITASCO have been to low anyway, they started a contract with a new client for 2011 - and told LITASCO that the contract will not be continued. This will cost LITASCO a lot of turnover and profit, as they lose the capacity of the Ventpils terminals.

So LITASCO tried to force Ventbunkers to continue the contract - by blocking their terminal facilities. How this is possible? That was an easy task for LITASCO - they just did not pick up their last deliverey end of December 2010 which was stored in the Ventbunkers tanks and ready for being loaded onto a LITASCO ship. LITASCO kept their ship away from the harbor - and waited. The flow of oil stopped, the Ventbunkers terminal got closed. The thousands of railcars coming from Russia for the next shipment could not be unloaded into the Ventbunkers tanks - as they were still filled to top.

This is business the russian style. Brute force in dealing with business partners. Also these undisclosed payments shed a strange light onto LITASCO and LUKOIL. If these payments were really made - as black payments to some "agents", then LITASCO really is in trouble.

If they disclose where the money went, they will bring their "agents" into trouble. The only solution we can see, is , that they now say "oops, we forgot to pay - and did not notice until now" - and pay the missing 20 mio. to Ventbunkers. But where will the money come from? Would LITASCO pay twice - or reclaim the amount from their "agents"?

An interesting story. We will see what happens.

Read the article in Baltic Course.

Dr. Rudolf Meroni / AS Ventbunkers

In their article published on January 30th, 2011 - Kārlis Lithens LETA and Aija Rutka LETA describe the current situation around the latvian security company "TM Security".

TM Security was involved in several fights about access to premises of AS Ventbunkers - where they claimed to be hired for security - which turned out to be untrue.

The security company's armed guards tried to prevent AS Ventbunkers officials (management board and supervisory board members) from entering their own offices (!!!). Incredible situation.

Police had to intervene, to allow the board members to enter their offices.

Swiss lawyer Dr. Rudolf Meroni - who is the chairman of the supervisory board of AS Ventbunkers explains in this article, that it is sad that police took months to verify, that the board members of AS Ventbunkers are legitimate. Meroni says, that police was just "sitting and watching".

Unbelievable situation in Latvia.

Read the full article LETA article quoting Dr. Rudolf Meroni.

In the article Lēvalde points out, that Dr. Rudolf Meroni (Rūdolfs Meroni) has become chairman of the board. In astonishing-latvia.com you can find more informationi on Dr. Rudolf Meroni.

This information about the changes in the board and executive board of the AS Ventspils Commercial Port (VTO) has been reported by Latvijas Vēstnesī.

DB furthermore reports, that these changes took place on May 19th 2010.

Read the full article in Dienas buizness titled as "Stepanovs pamet Ventspils Tirdzniecības ostu".

In Media-reading.com you may find more information on Oleg Stepanov.