Rosneft Unlikely to Stop Shell’s Sale of German Refinery Stake

Rosneft is likely to fail in its legal challenge against a planned sale of a minority stake in a German refinery that it used to control before Germany took over the Russian oil giant’s assets in the country.

Rosneft has a 54% stake in the Schwedt refinery, the fourth-largest refinery in Germany, which gets its oil from the Druzhba oil pipeline from Russia. The Schwedt refinery supplies 90% of the fuel needs of Germany’s capital city Berlin.

Shell, which holds a 37.5% interest in the refinery, announced at the end of last year plans to sell its stake to the Prax Group.

Rosneft has challenged this planned stake sale in a German regional court. The Russian oil firm has argued that the agreement among the Schwedt refinery shareholders has a clause giving the current shareholders the right of first refusal in case of a sale.

But the Higher Regional Court of Duesseldorf, where the Russian firm filed the legal challenge, said in a preliminary assessment on Wednesday that the complaint is unlikely to succeed.

“We see little chance of success for the complaint,” Reuters quoted Anne Frister of the court as saying.

Earlier this month, Germany extended its trusteeship over the German assets of Rosneft for another six months.

In September 2022, a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany put the local business of the Russian oil giant under trusteeship, handing control over the Schwedt refinery to the country’s energy market regulator.  

The extension of the trusteeship, the fourth six-month extension, is reportedly in anticipation of the negotiations for the sale of the Rosneft assets in Germany to Qatar.

In late August, reports emerged that Qatar is reportedly in talks to purchase Rosneft’s stake in the PCK Schwedt refinery.

Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, owns a 19% stake in Rosneft.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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