Transneft

Joint Stock Company Transneft (russian: Транснефть) is a state-controlled pipeline transport company headquartered in Moscow, Russia. It is the largest oil pipeline company in the world. Transneft is operating over of trunk pipelines and transports about 80% of oil and 30% of oil products produced in Russia. The company is led by Nikolay Tokarev.

History

Transneft was established by the Government of the Russian Federation on 14 August 1993 and it was registered by the Moscow Registration Chamber on 26 August 1993.

Semyon Vainshtok headed Transneft from 13 September 1999 to 11 September 2007. born October 5, 1947, Climăuți, Dondușeni District, Moldavian SSR), ''Weinstock'' is another spelling of his surname. Through his shell companies in Bahamas, Cyprus, and Switzerland, he has investments with Aker Solutions, the largest Norwegian oil company which was formerly known as ''Aker Kværner''.Alternate archive
/ref> In the late 1990s, Vainshtok ensured the funding of Baltic Pipeline System OJSC for the building of BTS-1 and in October 1999, he appointed Alexei Miller the general director of Baltic Pipeline System. In November 2007, he was closely associated with the Dutch oil firm Vitol through its joint venture Petrovit. Of the global oil traders in 2006, Glencore led with $116.5 billion, then Vitol had $113.9 billion and third was Gunvor with $30 billion. In Russia in 2008, he and Yuri Lisin (russian: Юрий Лисин), the former president and first vice president of Transneft respectively, along with Vainshtok's son in law Boris Lokshin (russian: Борис Локшин) were accused by Alexei Navalny of stealing $2 billion via money laundering from Transneft through 15 billion rubles in contributions to charities from 2005-2008 and a 31.6 billion rubles scheme for the construction of the Eastern Siberian-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline (russian: Восточная Сибирь — Тихий океан (ВСТО)) with VNIIST OJSC (russian: ОАО «ВНИИСТ»), Giprotruboprovod OJSC (russian: ОАО «Гипротрубопровод»), and Krasnodarstroytransgaz (russian: «Краснодарстройтрансгаз») which is a shell company that received from Transneft 30 billion rubles of equipment and materials through SDM-Leasing LLC (russian: ООО «СДМ-Лизинг») with an additional advance of 7 billion rubles. Although Vainshtok had direct access to Putin and was well liked by Putin, Gennady Timchenko of Gunvor did not like Transneft and Vainshtok and went to Igor Sechin of Rosneft who allowed the new president of Transneft Nikolai Tokarev to audit Transneft in late 2007 and found discrepancies involving Vainshtok during the construction of ESPO pipeline. On April 17, 2008, he stepped down from Olimpstroy (russian: Олимпстрой) which was the Russian state owned corporation that was developing the resort at Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics that Vainshtok had headed from September 11, 2007, and moved to London where he resided until 2010 when he moved to Israel.

In 2008, Transnefteproduct, a company transporting refined oil products, was merged into Transneft.

In 2018, Transneft took over 31% of shares which belonged to the Russian Federation in Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

Operations

Transneft is operating over of trunk pipelines and transports about 80% of oil and 30% of oil products produced in Russia.

Accusations

Documents submitted by Transneft to the Russian Audit Chamber in 2008 were found at the disposal of Alexey Navalny, a minority shareholder of Transneft. The papers, published on 16 November 2010, contain information regarding multiple economic crimes committed by Transeft employees including Semyon Vainshtok, its daughter structures and contractors in the construction of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. The documents described Transneft executives' setting up a series of shell companies to pose as contractors for Transneft's pipeline project. Navalny posted an audit indicating that the contracting fraud had cost Transneft US$4 billion. Both Transneft and the government auditing office, whose documents Navalny said he leaked on his site, denied the corruption claim. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for an investigation into the allegations. All facts of theft and fraud were confirmed by the company management. The reports that recorded the breaches were endorsed by the officials.

Sanctions

On February 24, 2022, in response to Russia's military operations in Ukraine, several countries moved to impose more economic sanctions in addition to those in response to the 2021-2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis. US President Joe Biden announced sanctions against several Russian individuals, companies, and financial institutions, including Transneft.

See also

*Energy policy of Russia
* Russia-Belarus energy dispute

Notes

References

External links

Official website in EnglishTransneft newsTransneft press releasesPublications about TransneftA Transneft JSC Shareholder Intends to Bring the Company Management to Criminal Liability

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Russian companies established in 1992
Companies based in Moscow
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1992
Companies listed on the Moscow Exchange
Government-owned companies of Russia
Oil companies of Russia
Oil pipeline companies
Russian brands
Russian entities subject to the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctions
Energy companies established in 1992