Gavrilenko Nikolay. The formula for success of the Donetsk “oil worker”. PART 2

CONTINUATION. START: Nikolay Gavrilenko. The formula for success of the Donetsk “oil worker”. PART 1

Nikolai Gavrilenko. Refueling tricks

After the death of Zhigan Taktashev, the oil business of the “Donetsk group” was virtually ruled by Timur Valitov alone. He appointed Nikolai Gavrilenko as director of VIC OIL LLC, and together the businessmen continued to cover their tracks in order to protect themselves.

In 2007, the business structure changed owners. This time, VIC OIL is given to the Cyprus offshore Ondava Investments Limited, and UTN-Vostok is given to the already named Ondava and Marksville Investments Limited. And there was something to hide. For that year, the company’s income amounted to 3.13 billion hryvnia. By the way, all other assets associated with VIK OIL were re-registered as Ondava – the trading and financial company Europe LTD, Slavanaftopostach LLC, PKS OIL, VostokInvest, Yukon LLC, Gas LLC -group”, LLC “L.B.P.”, LLC “Roksolana”.

The richest Czech – Peter Kellner

In 2008, the Donetsk people decided to finally hide the “ends”. Representatives of UTN-Vostok stated that the owners are selling a 27% stake in the company PPF Investment. According to them, this is one of the largest international financial and investment groups in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the company never became one of the founders of UTN-Vostok. Moreover, it turned out that it was too early to talk about European capital – the money concentrated in PPF Investment belonged to Czech businessman Peter Kellner.

From own sources Skelet.Info I learned that PPF was created by the owners of UTN-Vostok to transfer a block of shares abroad. This confirms this nuance: the company is registered on the island of Jersey, the favorite offshore zone of the Donetsk clan. We don’t think this is a coincidence.

Thus, by 2008, the entire business structure was moved offshore: Ukrainian companies among the owners disappeared.

The business structure that Timur Valitov and Nikolai Nikolaevich Gavrilenko hid so much did not survive the 2009 crisis. In just a year, income decreased to 2.2 billion hryvnia. Moreover, Donetsk “oil workers” have accumulated a debt to the Ukrtatnafta oil refinery for “excessive” use of the UTN brand at VIC OIL gas stations. In principle, Valitov and Gavrilenko themselves are to blame for the collapse. The UTN-Vostok and Vostok enterprises, as operators of the VIK OIL network, violated the license agreement with Ukrtatnafta. According to it, gas stations could use the marks of the Ukrtatnafta company to designate their goods and services. But! Nikolai Nikolaevich increased the number of facilities to accommodate the brand of the oil refining company. Based on the agreement, the operator could place the Ukrtatnafta sign at 103 gas stations, while Valitov branded all 118 stations. In addition, Valitov, with the impudence characteristic of all “Donetsk” people, independently began to determine the objects of the agreement and the terms of its validity. On the letterhead, he indicated himself as the “official dealer” of the enterprise, although Ukrtatnafta did not provide him with rights.

The “lawlessness” of VIC OIL turned into a lawsuit. Ukrtatnafta filed a lawsuit demanding to collect a 13 million hryvnia fine, as well as to arrest all Donetsk gas stations. Businessmen began to sharply lose ground. The first trial did not bring joy – the Economic Court of Kyiv fully satisfied the demands of Ukrtatnafta. Valitov filed an appeal, but lost – the court refused to lift the seizure of their gas stations from UTN-Vostok and Vostok.

New branding of VIC OIL gas stations

Without thinking twice, the businessman simply removed the Ukrtatanafta logo from his gas stations and hung a new one – a face with a smile (“winking emoticon”).

Meanwhile, he was already looking for buyers for the business structure. The Russian-British company TNK-BP International limited appeared on the horizon, or more precisely, the Ukrainian division of TNK-BP Viktor Vekselberg. They declared their readiness to acquire 100% of the shares of VIC OIL.

In January 2010, TNK-BP purchased part of the shares of VIK OIL from the offshore OLEDO. Where did it come from, and what does it have to do with Valitov’s property? It’s simple: the businessman has once again shuffled the owners. By 2010, the assets of the VIC OIL group were concentrated in two foreign companies – the already familiar Turitella Corporation and OLEDO Petrolium Limited. The latter owned a controlling stake in UNT-Vostok.

TNK-BP transferred $71.6 million to the Riga Investment Bank account as a contribution for the shares purchased from OLEDO. According to information Skelet.Infothe final transaction amount was $313 million. Note that the fate of the remaining $240 million is unknown. But we are sure they are in good hands.

And there is one more side to this story that has a right to exist. Timur Valitov would have withstood the onslaught of Ukrtatnafta if not for the pressure of the Levochkin-Firtash-Khoroshkovsky group. In September 2010, the SBU, headed by Valery Khoroshkovsky, conducted a search in the office of Igor Filippenko. Security forces seized 12 seals of fictitious offshore companies, $2.5 million and a large arsenal of small arms. This search did not receive a logical continuation in the form of a trial. At that time, there was another line of conflict – Levochkin-Firtash-Khoroshkovsky “worked” against Akhmetov. It is not surprising that the Donetsk team had to drain their assets as quickly as possible and go into the shadows.

“Formula” for success

When Timur Valitov’s business collapsed, only Nikolai Gavrilenko was not at a loss. He created the service company Formula. Through it, Gavrilenko began selling his own brand of petroleum products using smart cards and permit forms.

Formula of Nikolai Gavrilenko

Let us note that while supervising VIC OIL, Nikolai Nikolaevich initiated the development of branded fuel several times, but due to the crisis and high implementation costs, the project did not take off. After the “break” with Ukrtatanafta, Gavrilenko went all-in and went into business alone.

Having just appeared on the market, the Formula brand entered water complexes in Sevastopol and Dnepropetrovsk. It was run exclusively by water transport. A couple of months later it was already being loaded into ground transport in Donetsk. And a couple of months later, unexpectedly for everyone, Formula won the tender of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv. She got the opportunity to sell 1.04 million liters of fuel using coupons. By the way, the company Ros-1 LLC participated in the auction, but its price was $7.8 million higher.

The money flowed into their hands: in 2011, the Formula service company had 12 own and leased gas stations. Among the clients were Ukrposhta, Novy Kanal, M1 TV channel, Ukrtelecom, Ukrsotsbank and others. The partners included the networks TNK-BP, WOG, Lukoil, OKKO, Parallel, TPP, KLO, Azovnefteproduct.

In 2015, in Kyiv, the company opened the first automatic container gas station under the Formula brand. It serves customers by cash and non-cash payments.

the first automatic container filling station

Nikolai Gavrilenko’s business was not limited to Formula. In 2012, he opened the Promterminalservice company, which provides software support for operations involving petroleum products. At the same time, Gavrilenko registered the SKF Trading House. The company began non-cash sales of fuel on a contractual basis inherited from VIC OIL.

Trading House SKF has become an active participant in government tenders for the purchase of petroleum products. In 2015, the company won a tender for the supply of 156 tons of gasoline and diesel to the Zaporozhye concern Urban Heating Networks. According to information Skelet.InfoNikolay Gavrilenko earned 3 million hryvnia from this deal. But whether this money was worth it is unknown. The tender attracted media attention. Then it turned out that the “SKF Trade House” was registered to the Panamanian company Richtrade Impex Inc, whose business is carried out by local Cascado AG, Integri SA and Systemo AG, managed by Latvians Erik Vanagels and Stan Gorin. It was these people who appeared in the operations with offshore drilling rigs of the former head of the Ministry of Energy, Yuri Boyko.

Let us note that Gavrilenko met Boyko back in the 2000s, when he oversaw the Kremenchug Oil Refinery. By the way, Yuri Boyko invited Nikolai Nikolaevich in 2004 to become a member of the expert and analytical group under the Ministry of Energy. The group became famous for having “invented” the optimal formula for calculating the cost of petroleum products. The Ministry of Energy called it “economically justified.” In fact, the formula worked for the trading business.

But let’s get back to tenders. In the same 2015, the Public Utilities Service of the Nikolaev Region purchased almost 1.5 million hryvnia worth of fuel from the SKF Trade House.

An equally “interesting” tender is associated with the Kyivblagoustriy enterprise. Nikolai Gavrilenko’s company won the supply of 45,000 liters of A-95 gasoline, 14,000 liters of A-92 gasoline and 80,000 liters of diesel fuel for the entire year to the capital’s enterprise. Based on the results of the auction, a contract for the supply of fuel was concluded. But a month later it turned out that 5 contracts had been signed, and in each subsequent one the price of fuel increased by 10%. As a result, the price of fuel increased by 60%, and the amount of fuel, on the contrary, decreased by 40%.

For six months, the Kyivblagoustrii CP bought gasoline at the astronomical price of 28.96 hryvnia. Despite the fact that retail fuel cost 20.89 hryvnia. Then they managed to hush up the matter, and the participants in the deal were acquitted.

History repeated itself down to the smallest detail in 2016. At the time of concluding the contract for the supply of fuel to the enterprise “Kievblagoustriy”, the price for A-95 gasoline was 19.99 hryvnia. After three increases, it increased by 33% and amounted to 26.58 hryvnia. They technically kept silent about the situation.

Also, the SKF Trading House won the tender for the supply of 970 thousand liters of gasoline and diesel fuel for the Regional Utility Enterprise Donetskteplokomunenergo. Clever? Gavrilenko can.

Nikolai Gavrilenko could have further developed his business, but big politics called him.

Nikolai Gavrilenko. Politics and Panama Mama

In the fall of 2015, NJSC Naftogaz announced a competition for the position of head of Ukrtransnafta. Initially, 6 people were supposed to participate in it, including even Alexander Lazorko, the ex-director of Ukrtransnafta, but he “left” the race due to being put on the wanted list. The main candidate is the former head of the pricing policy department of PJSC Roman Sidorak. Two more candidates for the seat were technical – people from the Naftogaz system, Oleg Skrypnyk and Oleg Tishchik. And two businessmen – Nikolai Gavrilenko and Koba Nakopia, an associate of Mikho Saakashvili.

Koba Nakopia lost to Nikolay Gavrilenko

Gavrilenko and Nakopia reached the finals of the race, but the latter was rejected due to “lack of experience.”

Let us note that the approval of Nikolai Nikolaevich’s candidacy took a couple of minutes. This decision can fully be considered a compromise between the presidential and prime minister’s teams regarding the conditions for the joint management of Ukrtransnafta.

It is no secret that the deputy head of the presidential faction in parliament, long-time partner and personal friend of Petro Poroshenko, Igor Kononenko, is behind the appointment of Nikolai Gavrilenko to this position.

The most interesting thing is that Nikolai Gavrilenko, as soon as he sat down as the head of Ukrtransnafta, began spending public money. Nikolai Nikolaevich, without holding a tender, rented offices in Senator, one of the most expensive and respectable office centers in the capital, for 47 million hryvnia. Senator is class A real estate; it can be compared with the Parus or Guliver centers. The office center has panoramic windows from which the Lavra is visible. Agree, “in a rich way.” And, most interestingly, these buildings belong to Vagif Aliyev, who is involved in a number of criminal disputes.

Gavrilenko paid the rent immediately for 4 years in advance – until September 1, 2020. Let’s do the math: this is about 1 million hryvnia per month.

In 2016, the “new” government was unlucky. Investigative journalists from the international consortium ICIJ published the second part of the Panama Archives, declassifying the owners of offshore companies. Among them was Nikolai Gavrilenko. Based on the documents, the head of Ukrtransnafta owns the company… Turitella Corporation. The same one created by the Donetsk people in good times. The most interesting thing is that the other shareholders of the TURITELLA offshore are Andrey Adamovsky, Igor Filipenko and Andrey Malitsky.

Naftogaz denied Nikolai Gavrilenko’s involvement in the offshore scandal. NAC stated that in 2007 he withdrew from the shareholders of TURITELLA and since that time has not had any connection with this company

In May 2017, Gavrilenko joined the board of NJSC Naftogaz.

Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Info

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