New daughters of RussNeft of an Unknown Quantity
They were trying to sell fictitiously its oil products
The reputation of Oil Company RussNeft OAO owned by Mikhail Gutseriev was nearly destroyed due the illegal activities of unknown swindlers. The Company informed its partners that certain firms named Rosoil and Russoilexport pretending to be subsidiaries of RussNeft and offering to conclude contracts on delivery of crude oil and oil products were related to it in no way. It was not the only one example of such swindlers acting in the name of well-known oil and gas companies. The market participants have not so far thought of a way of handling such situations.
RussNeft has spread the statement about the fraudulent actions of two companies Rosoil and Russoilexport. The statement says that those two companies were in no way related to RussNeft but presented themselves as its subsidiaries and concluded contracts on delivery of crude oil and oil products. According to Vice-Resident of RussNeft Edward Sarkisov, the fraud was detected before a fraudulent transaction was finalized but at a stage which was very close to completion.
Both of the companies have practically identical Web sites copying the corporate site of RussNeft with minor changes. The enterprises affiliated with RussNeft are represented at those sites as the own subsidiaries of Rosoil and Russoilexport. According to the information published on the international sites of Russoilexport, this company is ready to deliver up to 500 thousand tons of crude oil, up to 300 thousand tons of diesel oil, up to 100 thousand tons of fuel oil and up to 100 thousand tons of aviation kerosene per month. Rosoil presents itself as a supplier of crude oil and petroleum products having export licences for the products of Gasprom and Rosneft. At Rosneft the KommersantЪ was informed that there was no such company in its structure, as for Gazprom they just don’t produce any of the products referred to by Rosoil. The contact phones of the fraudulent agents are dead.
Oil Company NK RussNeft OAO under the control of Mikhail Gutseriev was founded in 2002. It owns 30 upstream companies, 3 refineries and a retail network with 300 gas-filling complexes. In 2005 the oil production of RussNeft enterprises came to 12.2 million tons and its profit amounted to 66.9 billion roubles.
Mr.Sarkisov said that possibly the persons standing behind Rosoil and Russoilexport were close to the founders of RussNeft OOO which last year also spread business proposals in the name of RussNeft. In October RussNeft announced that the OOO had nothing to do with the Company and they could not bear responsibility for the deals concluded by it.
Russnef is not the only company that has suffered from the actions of swindlers. In August 2005 Lukoil-Neftehim ZAO was confronted with namesake swindlers. At that time the strangers demanded that a subsidiary of Lukoil pay counterfeit deals with LUKOIL Chemical Incorporated N.V. and LUKOIL Chemical Incorporated (BVI) which were not affiliated with Lukoil. Gazprom had a similar story. Italian Sirco said in April that it had a proposal on partnership with Ukranian ТОО Revne Ltd. The proposal was backed up by a contract dated September 16, 2004. According to the terms of the contract, Revne (which is involved in potatoes growing business, according to Gazprom data) and unknown company Delf Group LLC were official partners of Gazexport and undertook to annually deliver 6 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe for a time period of five years. The same contract carrying a forged signature of Gazprom Head Aleksey Miller was sent to German Verbundnegz Gas AG. When the German company applied to Gazprom for explanations it turned out that it was a fake contract. The experts point out that upstream oil and gas companies practically never suffer from those who claim their affiliation with big corporations and conclude delivery contracts using the names of those corporations as a cover. As for downstream companies they are regularly subjected to the attacks of this sort. “It is difficult to follow the process of appearance of such companies. In most cases the alarm is set when a fact of fraud is established,” said a KommersantЪ interlocutor in a big oil company. “It is possible to prevent swindlers from doing real harm by guiding security services towards revealing such companies in due time.”
Natalia ЪSkorlygina