The Ministry of Energy sent government bodies a proposal to consider introducing external management of the assets of EuroTrans, which owns the Trassa gas station network, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported, citing two sources. No decision has been made yet, and as an alternative, the transfer of Trassa’s assets to one of the vertically integrated oil companies is being discussed.
This concerns the application of Vladimir Putin’s decree on the security of critical infrastructure, signed on August 24. According to one of the publication’s interlocutors, the ministry explained the initiative by the need to ensure the security of petroleum product storage facilities.
The decree allows critical infrastructure facilities to be transferred to temporary management if the owners have not ensured their security, including protection from drones, or have not restored them in time after damage. The term of such management is not set, and the assets can be returned to the owner by government decision.
First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov previously said that this mechanism does not mean nationalization. EuroTrans ranks second in sales among independent gas station operators in Moscow and the Moscow region, and its assets include 57 Trassa filling complexes, an oil depot, and a fleet of fuel tankers.
The Ministry of Energy’s letter was sent even before the detention of the company’s co-owners and top managers in the case of fuel theft from the Moscow region police. On September 7, the Moscow Exchange recorded a default on all of EuroTrans’s exchange bonds, and the company’s public debt amounts to 36.1 billion rubles.
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