You may read the articles in media-reading - or go to the source directly:

• Tendersinfo.com
• Zambiawatchdog
• Tizambia.org

There are several news sources which make it obviouse, that LUKOIL daughter company LITASCO has tried to influence a tender in Zambia in LITASCO's favor.

Details about black payments and corruption are still to be investigated around this case - but the articles really sound terrible.

Also in the fight between LITASCO and AS Ventbunkers there seem to have been such illegal schemes, which rerouted payments to some "other party" instead of into the bank accounts of AS Ventbunkers.

This brings a strange light on to LITASCO, an international oil trading company - which does not have much in common with western business ethics.

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.

AS Ventbunkers

On January 28th, 2011 - the AS Ventbunkers press service published a press release about the current situation with the AS Ventbunkers client LITASCO.

As the press release expresses, the terminals of Ventbunkers are currently blocked by LITASCO. This, by not taking over their oil from the Ventbunkers terminals and thus blocking the terminals.

This situation is now ongoing since christmas last year - and costs Ventbunkers millions every day. A loss in turnover and profit which will be difficult to compensate during 2011.

The situation began, when LITASCO claimed to have paid 20 mio. US-dollars for Ventbunkers services - to unknown bank accounts. LITASCO refused to disclose where they have made the payment to. Funny.

Ventbunkers accordingly closed contracts with other customers for the future. This did not seem to have been anticipated by the LITASCO management. Now they are trying to "convince" Ventbunkers to continue, using "brute force".

As russian company .... business ehtics seem to be different still - in Russia. I would say - if you have to do business with Russians - be very very very careful.

Read the full AS Ventbunkers press release 2011-01-28

Railroad jam

Nozare.info reports on January 18, 2011 on the peculiar situation of Ventbunkers (VBU) and the Russian oil giant Lukoil.

Lukoil (or their subsidiary company Litasco) is trying to force VBU sign a new contract by failing to load the terminal stored passwords, and blocking the possibility of handling other customer load.

Rudolf Meroni (Rudolf Meroni), Ventbunkers council promises to fight it.

Read the full article at nozare.info.