Lukoil Restarts Romanian Refinery Amid Fraud Probe

The Petrotel refinery in Ploiesti in southern Romania, majority owned by Lukoil, restarted on Monday, after being shut for a week because of the fraud investigation, according to company sources.

Russia's ambassador to Romania last week expressed concern after Romanian prosecutors seized oil and fuel inventories worth 1.04 billion lei (230 million euro) belonging to Petrotel Lukoil.

Lukoil threatened to shut the plant permanently, and on Thursday, President Traian Basescu urged the government to "take over the Petrotel refinery if production doesn't restart there".

"Lukoil must decide whether it respects the laws of the Romanian state; if it wants the laws in Moscow, it should go there," Basescu said.

Lukoil Europe Holdings, part of Lukoil, owns 97.1 per cent of the Petrotel Lukoil refinery, while other shareholders own the other 2.89 per cent of the shares.

The Petrotel-Lukoil refinery is one of the largest oil refineries in Romania and eastern Europe in general. It was sold to Lukoil in 1998.

Relations between Bucharest and Moscow were already poor before the row over the refinery. NATO-member Romania has been among the strongest regional backers of Western sanctions on Russia over the conflict in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Last October, Russia was also angered when the US started installing missile interceptors at the Deveselu military base in southern Romania as part of the second phase of the US-led project to build a missile shield in Europe.