Lukoil’s refinery in Bulgaria promised Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov to pay almost twice as much tax to the state after the Bulgarian parliament threatened to ban Russian crude oil imports by sea, DPS parliamentary group leader Delyan Peevski (Renew) announced on Monday.
Peevski made the announcement following the government’s meeting with MPs, which was entirely devoted to the presence of the Russian oil company in Bulgaria and the right to process Russian crude oil.
Bulgaria has a derogation from the EU oil embargo against Russia until the end of 2024, which is used by Lukoil’s Bulgarian refinery.
“Thanks to the threat of cancellation of the derogation, Lukoil has promised to pay its taxes in the amount of over 500 million leva (€250 million),” Peevski said after the extraordinary meeting in the parliament.
Until now, the government had expected Lukoil to contribute €135 million in taxes to the state budget, but Peevski announced that the company had promised to pay €250 million if the parliament kept the derogation from the EU oil embargo on Russia.
“Let Lukoil hear us clearly, they cannot think that they will not pay their taxes in Bulgaria”, Peevski threatened.
However, two of the most influential parliamentary parties, GERB and DPS, insist on much more – they want Lukoil to pay a total of €750 million due to the accumulated monthly contributions that the company must pay to the Bulgarian Energy Security Fund.
The Bulgarian energy tax on oil is determined by the difference between the price of Brent crude oil and the Russian Urals oil imported from the Lukoil refinery. The fee was introduced in February 2023 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the notification of the law to the European Commission has not yet been completed.
Because of this, the amounts due have not yet been collected by the government, reports the Mediapool news site.
Over the weekend, GERB and DPS threatened to adopt urgent changes to the law to immediately ban the import of Russian crude oil. The representatives of GERB went beyond this line and started talking about taking control of the refinery and nationalising Lukoil’s crude oil storage facilities.
On Monday, Peevski also announced that the state would take control of the warehouses.
The government has concerns that the shutdown of Russian oil supplies could happen too soon, which could affect refinery operations. Bulgaria has not yet built the necessary infrastructure for the supply of non-Russian oil, and the passage of oil tankers through the Bosphorus takes place with a delay of 25 days.
(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)
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