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KazMunayGas: Dispute with Romanian government on Rompetrol will not prevent sale of shares to Chinese company
The litigation with the Government of Romania will not affect the sale of 51 percent of the shares of the Rompetrol Company to China's CEFC, KazMunayGas vice chairman of the Board Daniyar Berlibayev says, according to the Kazakh news website Informburo.kz.
CEFC and state-owned KazMunayGas of Kazakhstan (owner of Rompetrol) agreed in April on the sale of 51 percent of KMG International (fully owned by KazMunayGas) for 680 million dollars. Berlibayev was confident that the deal could be completed by the end of 2016.
"The transaction will not be endangered. We have proposed to finalise it in September — October, by the end of the year. Which is why we believe that by then everything will be solved. Now we are in the final phase of the transaction," he asserted.
In his opinion, Romania's Government is trying to revive the idea that the privatization of the Rompetrol in 1999-2003 was unlawful.
"We have purchased the company in 2007. We had the necessary approvals from Romania's authorities and from the European Commission, because the decision was taken at the EC's level. Therefore, we consider ourselves a purchaser in good faith. We did appeal. In reality, we have no right suspended, only that we are having a precautionary attachment on our shares because of that ongoing investigation," the KazMunayGas official explained.
Upon purchasing Rompetrol, KazMunayGas got guarantees from the Romanian authorities that the company on sale had accomplished all its obligations to the state, KMG International vice chairman Azamat Zhangulov declared Thursday in an interview to AGERPRES.
He asserted that the lawsuit in the Rompetrol case should not harm the company's current activity, but due to the precautionary attachment on the group's assets, the company cannot make any investments.
Department of Communication and Public Relations KMG Interna?ional: Press release
Rompetrol Gas notes with astonishment the decision of the Ministry of Public Finance to reject the application for the re-authorization of its production tax warehouse on the Petromidia platform (the LPG bottling station of Navodari), a situation which has led to the revocation of the current tax warehouse authorization. The Rompetrol Gas Company is a member of the KMG International Group, and the respective facility carried out mainly LPG bottling activities for domestic consumers (gas cylinders).
The decision of the Authorizing Commission of the Ministry of Public Finances was adopted in two meetings of April 21 and May 19, 2016, and was communicated to us on May 25.
According to legal provisions, the company suspended as of yesterday its production and selling activities at the Navodari working station, as the local customs authority sealed the production facilities. At the same time, sales of the inventory are blocked and can only be resumed with the agreement of the local customs authority.
We remind that Rompetrol Gas started the legal procedures for renewing the tax warehouse authorization of this facility as early as 2010. This procedure was hindered by the situation of certain assets used by Rompetrol Gas in the production process, which are legally owned by Rompetrol Rafinare and were subject of the ANAF decision of 10 September 2010 establishing seizure on all the movable, immovable properties and shares owned by Rompetrol Rafinare in other entities.
Despite a partial lifting in April 2016 of the seizure established by ANAF over these assets in 2010 (following submission by Rompetrol Rafinare SA of guarantees in compliance with the law), these goods were recently subject to a new seizure established by DIICOT on the 9th of May on the movable, immovable properties and shares owned by Rompetrol Rafinare in other entities, a situation which ruled out a favorable outcome of Rompetrol Gas' application.
In this situation, the company will fulfill its commitments to customers in the Dobrogea area by ensuring continuous supply from its bottling facility in Bacau. In 2008 and 2010, Rompetrol Gas opened bottling stations in Arad and Bacau, with a total investment of USD 21 million, leading to the creation of 150 new jobs.
The Company will take all legal measures to protect its employees against the effects of this decision. Today, the 30 employees of the Navodari working station were to load more than 1.000 cylinders with the gas produced at the Petromidia refinery, which are products subject to VAT and other taxes.