Petroleum 20 years: the best
A Second Campaign to Lithuania
Whether KMG needs a plant in Mazeikiu?
In late 2006 the first pages of the large-circulation Polish newspapers carried screaming slogans such as “Mazeikiu has been captured” or “Orlen is in the mouth of the Russian bear”. The Polish journalists in enthusiastic tones described a victory of the state Polish company Orlen in the tender for privatization of JSC Mazeikiu Nafta – a large oil refinery in Lithuania. Five years have passed since then and the tone of the articles in the Polish press has changed. The bravura slogans disappeared, however the hints appeared on the negotiations conducted by Orlen on the sale of a significant part of its package in the Lithuanian oil refinery either to the unnamed South-Korean company, or to the mysterious investment fund from Qatar. And the last news – about the start of negotiations with the national company KazMunayGas (KMG). Petroleum has tried to clarify how far this information corresponds to reality.
The company Mazeikiu Nafta (МN) was formed in 1995 through privatization of the state enterprise Nafta. The oil refinery in the Lithuanian town of Mazeikiu was built in Soviet times as part in the process chain called, through the system of oil pipelines Druzhba (Friendship), to provide the Baltic republics and the brotherhood socialist countries with petroleum products. So, the ways of delivery of raw materials to the plant, alternative to Druzhba, even were not reviewed under designing. Meanwhile, it was this circumstance that later became the Achilles' heel of МN.