Poland determined to go ahead with Lithuanian refinery deal, president says

International Herald Tribune ^ | September 5, 2006

[lizol]

Poland determined to go ahead with Lithuanian refinery deal, president says

The Associated Press

Published: September 5, 2006

VILNIUS, Lithuania The presidents of Poland and Lithuania said Tuesday they were determined to follow through with Poland's US$2.3 billion (€1.8 billion) purchase of a Lithuanian oil refinery, despite supply problems from Russia.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, making a two-day visit to Lithuania, said investors had no intention of bailing out of the purchase of Mazeikiu Nafta, despite a Russian decision to cut crude oil supplies to the Baltics' only refinery.

"Poland is very much determined here," he was quoted by the Baltic News Service as saying at a news conference. "We have no intention to sell the shares to any other company. It has cost us too much effort to sell now."

The sale of Mazeikiu Nafta to Poland's PKN Orlen SA, signed in May but still pending approval by the European Commission, has been mired in uncertainty after Russia ceased supplying crude oil to Lithuania at the end of July, citing a technical breakdown of a pipeline in Belarus.

[lizol]

Eastern European ping list

---

FRmail me to be added or removed from this Eastern European ping list

[monday]

Russia still likes throwing it's weight around? or is the government simply incapable of running it's newly nationalized oil assets. I have been expecting Russia's oil production to decrease since nationalization but this is very soon.

The bureaucrats in charge of the Belorussian pipeline must be extraordinarily incompetent.

[thackney]

Opec: Russia becomes top crude producer, KSA in second place
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1695701/posts

[monday]

"But in recent years Russia has re-nationalised and modernised much of its industry and that policy now appears to be paying off."

lol.... The private companies modernized and made Russia number one oil producer. Now that Russia has renationalized it, it will be headed right back to the bottom. If you want to know where Russian oil production is headed, look towards Russian oil production of the late eighties when the government still ran it.

[thackney]

I don't know, there are some very big oil production facilities in progress. My company is working on a few of them. I see them going up in the near term, not down.

[monday]

You are right. Bureaucratic mismanagement will take a decade or two to show itself before production starts to slide again, but it will. It is inevitable.

Thats why I was surprised that the Russians couldn't fix the Belorussian pipeline. Such incompetence usually comes along later after all the private managers have been fired in order to reward political hacks with their jobs.

[Spirited]

God guide and save them.