As of: February 8, 2024, 3:38 p.m
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The PCK refinery in Schwedt supplies large parts of northeast Germany with gasoline and diesel.
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
Expropriation of companies is considered the last resort - this step is now being examined in the case of the PCK oil refinery.
The Russian state-owned company Rosneft will not accept this.
Berlin - The PCK refinery in Schwedt, Brandenburg, has been working without Russian oil for more than a year.
But there is still no clarity as to what will happen next with the location.
Everything depends on the majority owner of the refinery, the subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft.
The federal government is now considering expropriation.
Sharp criticism immediately came from the Kremlin in Moscow.
“This is nothing other than the expropriation of foreign property, these are all steps that are likely to undermine the economic and legal foundations of European states,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday, according to the Interfax news agency.
Such actions devalued Germany's attractiveness as an investment location.
However, many questions remain unanswered, such as what compensation payments the federal government could receive and who could take over the majority shares in Rosneft.
On Thursday it became known that Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to talk about the continued supply of crude oil to the refinery during his inaugural visit to Poland.
Even if a decision for expropriation has not been made, a new dispute seems certain.
Rosneft will take action against this and exhaust all legal means, said Kremlin spokesman Peskov.
In the region in the north-east of Brandenburg, CDU politicians speak of a wrong path and a catastrophic signal.
In contrast, the left has long considered expropriation to be the right step.
Large parts of northeast Germany and western Poland are supplied with gasoline and diesel from Schwedt.
The PCK refinery is currently under trust management
As a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Russia has already lost its influence on the PCK refinery in 2022.
The federal government took control of two subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned company, Rosneft Germany and RN Refining & Marketing.
The majority share of 54 percent in PCK is under trust management, which has already been extended several times.
The aim was to keep the plant, which had been running on Russian oil for decades and was important for the northeast, running after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the EU oil embargo.
As things currently stand, the trust administration ends on March 10th and can be extended.
Expropriation - and then?
With an amendment to the Energy Security Act, the federal government paved the way for expropriation as early as 2023.
Shares in companies under trust management can therefore be sold more easily.
In the case of Rosneft, it has long been discussed that the Polish Orlen is interested in joining PCK.
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Behind closed doors, people close to the refinery's shareholders also say that expropriation could jeopardize the delivery of oil from Kazakhstan.
The system relies on this to secure supply.
The catch: The Russian Druzhba pipeline must be used to forward Kazakh oil.
Since the oil embargo, crude oil has also been coming to Schwedt via the port of Rostock and the Polish port of Gdansk.
Rosneft: Expropriation would be unprecedented
The Berlin law firm Malmendier Legal, commissioned by the company, said on Thursday: “Such an expropriation would represent a measure that would remain unprecedented in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany and would forever harm investment security.
Rosneft, as a listed joint stock company, will take all measures to protect the rights of its shareholders.”
The federal government is initially planning a hearing to examine expropriation.
When asked, lawyer Bertrand Malmendier said: “It remains to be decided whether Rosneft will comment during the hearing.” It has not yet been possible to conclusively answer how Rosneft will specifically proceed.
“There is of course legal recourse against expropriations,” it said.
The law firm also said in writing: “Considering that it was the trustee's instruction not to purchase crude oil from Russia from January 1, 2023 and the order of a state trust in September 2022 that brought the refinery operations into the current situation, It remains a curiosity how the state itself or a hastily summoned third party can operate the refineries better than in the current situation.
According to dpa information, the federal government's primary goal remains to ensure security of supply and to secure Rosneft Germany's business operations reliably and in the long term.
With regard to the expiry of the trust administration, it was said that without subsequent government measures, Rosneft Germany was in danger of no longer being able to fulfill its supply mandate.
Politicians from the CDU from Brandenburg think this step is wrong
The CDU Bundestag member Jens Koeppen and the Uckermark district administrator Karina Dörk (CDU) criticized in a joint statement: “The decision is a catastrophic signal for our region.
The decision raises new question marks about jobs, energy security, but also the transformation of the location.
In addition, the planned decision to expropriate is a disturbing signal to all investors in our country.” dpa