Baltic States – CIS, Energy, Latvia, Legislation, Lithuania, Oil, Transport

“As regards the buyer of the chain, the range of possibilities is very wide, including the chains operating in Lithuania and a new brand, a large external investor, which, however, is less likely. It is more likely that some of the existing market players will try to increase their market share,” Nerijus Maciulis told BNS.

He reminded of certain individuals related to the executives of Lukoil Baltija who owned other filling stations in Lithuania. In particular, Andrei Paleichik, the son of Lukoil Baltija president Ivan Paleichik, headed the company Spectator NT that owned Baltic Petroleum gas stations. Ivan Paleichik and his wife Birute owned the Vaizga group, the operator of gas stations operating under the brands of Luktarna, Baltic Petroleum and Lukoil.

“We shouldn’t forget that the current operators of Lukoil chain also have other gas stations, which means that nothing will change, except for the brand,” the economist said.

Paleichik told BNS that he would make comments about the company’s sale on Monday afternoon.

In Maciulis’ view, Lukoil’s decision to sell the chain of filling stations had mainly been triggered by changes in the oil market.

“That decision by Lukoil has not been unexpected in any way as it matches their general strategy to withdraw from retail and focus on oil production and refining. And, of course, it’s also related with the structural breakthrough in the oil market, the slump in oil prices and the slump in Lukoil’s prices and profitability, which means that they had to focus on something and to mobilize competences in one particular area. Perhaps it’s also related with the need to generate some revenue in the short term through the sale of the chain of filling stations,” he said.

Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov said in an interview with Rossiya 24 television last week that the company’s chain of filling stations in Lithuania and Latvia would be sold due to “quite serious anti-Russian sentiment” in those countries.

According to Maciulis, the political situation might have been one of the factors behind this decision but it had not been decisive.

Lukoil Baltija now operates a chain of 109 filling stations in Lithuania and plans to reduce it to 76.

In 2014, the company’s annual revenue fell by an annual 18% to 266 million euros and the profit shrank by 35% to 2.3 million euros. In June, the company pulled out of the fuel retail market in Estonia with the sale of its chain of gas stations to Estonia’s fuel retailer Olerex. Last year, it sold its retail fuel chains in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Ukraine.