Media outlook in August 2005 | |||
Gasoline crisis: why does it happen again?
Ukraine is facing the situation where all oil refineries do not belong to the state. In particular the majority holding of the biggest enterprises were sold to three Russian financial and industrial groups: the Odessa Oil Refinery to "LUKOIL", the Lisichansk Oil Refinery (LINOS) to TNK-BP, and the Kherson Oil Refinery to the Group "Alliance". Together with the Joint Stock Company "Ukrtatnafta" these companies are the major suppliers of the oil products in the country and all of them are controlled by the so-called Russian capital. The Russian companies it turns or sometimes jointly organize some kind of scheduled repair works of their oil processing plants. And they do this exactly at the height of the sowing or harvesting seasons. That's why there is tension at the market of fuel and lubrication materials. For example, according to the analytics price growth for the fuel this week was caused by serious technical problems at the Lisichansk Oil Refinery, which allegedly was struck by a lightning on August 8. There were not yet any announcements that the work of the plant was fully resumed. The work schemes used by the Russian oil companies in Ukraine allow them to constantly exert pressure at the Ukrainian authorities and the President, since in order to somehow slow down price growth the Government along with the President are forced to conduct negotiations with the Russian side – the major and the only oil supplier. This situation is soaked with some peculiar conspiracy of the Russian oil companies which was already mentioned by the Ukrainian Prime-Minister Yuliya Timoshenko during the first sudden price growth for the oil products in Ukraine.
Source: Postup