Half a billion from the YaNAO fields were lost in the conflicts of Rosneftegaz. Licenses and budget money hung in court
Urengoyremstroydobycha will again have to defend its claims. Major financial proceedings related to a well-known businessman in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the founder of Rosneftegaz Corporation Oleg Sitnikov, have received a new twist. Cassation unfolded the decisions of previous instances on claims for hundreds of millions of rubles from Urengoyremstroydobycha (URSD) to Rosneftegaz from St. Petersburg.
In the dispute, a remarkable inconsistency in the position of the debtor surfaced, which either denied the work and questioned the signatures allegedly made by the general director, then, after the change of the sole executive body to the Avtomobilist company, recognized the obligations. In addition, the creditor’s probable connection with Rosneftegaz and, accordingly, Sitnikov, became the general line for criticizing the claims of the URSD. At the same time, the decision on claims risks playing a key role in the bankruptcy cases of both the company from St. Petersburg and Urengoyremstroydobycha.
The latter previously provided hundreds of jobs in Novy Urengoy, but ended up in bankruptcy proceedings. Businessmen have already made an attempt to restore the company’s solvency with reference to future income of more than 800 million, but the court has not yet evaluated this plan. Now the parties are waiting for a new round of proceedings, and Sitnikov continues to broadcast judgments about pressure on business, recalling, in particular, the former status security officials.
The Arbitration Court of the North-Western District overturned the decisions of the lower courts, which recognized as justified claims for 565 million from Urengoyremstroydobycha LLC (URSD; Novy Urengoy) against Rosneftegaz Corporation LLC (St. Petersburg), whose ultimate beneficiaries, according to Kontur.Fokus , are the infamous Yamal businessman Oleg Sitnikov (~94.34%) and Maxim Vetyugov (~5.66%). Market participants and the media call the latter the son of the former prosecutor of the YaNAO Nikolai Vetyugov.
As follows from the documents, the claims of the company from the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug concerned the work performed at the fields, in respect of which Rosneftegaz Corporation was issued licenses for the right to use subsoil. In particular, the materials mention the Kunovatsky site in the Shuryshkarsky district, the Kharvutinsky site in the Priuralsky and Nadymsky districts, and the Yuzhno-Yaroyakhinsky site in the Purovsky district.
However, not everyone agreed with the demands. They were opposed, in particular, by the interim manager of Rosneftegaz and the bankrupt LLC Novourengoy Drilling Operations Administration (NUBR; part of the IDS Group holding of Artur Dulgeru and Gadzhi Gadzhiev).
So, the manager, for example, pointed out that the existence of real economic legal relations between partners is doubtful.
“Most of the contracts and acts in the form of KS-2, KS-3 are not signed by the parties or signed using a facsimile; in the course of proceedings by the representative of the debtor under a power of attorney issued by the general director Evdokimov D.Yu., the fact that the creditor had performed work and that the signature belonged on behalf of Evdokimov was denied. The change in position
He also referred to the conclusion of a specialist of Elok Expert Bureau LLC, according to which “the image of signatures on behalf of Evdokimov was applied to certificates of the cost of work performed and costs by a technical method”, and the existence of discrepancies in the documents.
Another key line of criticism of the half-billion claim was the likely ties between the companies.
“The interim manager refers to the fact that affiliated with Rosneftegaz-Kharp is also affiliated with the debtor, since they are controlled by the same person – Oleg Afanasevich Sitnikov.
Opponents of URSD, SibTekhnoBur (Langepas; Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug), in turn, indicated that they carried out work in neighboring areas with the site of disputed operations, and at the same time they had no data on the work of Urengoyremstroydobycha.
As a result, the cassation recognized the criticism as justified and sent the dispute for a new consideration to the court of first instance. It should be noted that the requirements of the URSD are fundamental in the bankruptcy case of Rosneftegaz Corporation – earlier, in particular, with reference to them, bankruptcy proceedings were canceled in the company.
An important dispute may turn out to be for various state bodies of the YNAO. Thus, the administration of the Shuryshkarsky district has already announced the debts of Rosneftegaz for 44.2 million rubles, and the Department of Natural Resource Regulation, Forest Relations and the Development of the Oil and Gas Complex of the YaNAO – claims for 44.2 million rubles. Among the creditors also appear MUP “UGH” (Novy Urengoy) and others.
Disputes and licenses of Rosneftegaz touched. In particular, interim measures were taken, according to which the corporation is prohibited from taking actions aimed at terminating and alienating the license for geological exploration in relation to the Yuzhno-Yaroyakhinsky block.
No less remarkable is the decision on the requirements and in the context of the bankruptcy case of Urengoyremstroydobycha LLC itself. It should be noted, according to the information of Kontur.Focus, at the end of 2021 the company had a balance sheet of 1.2 billion, revenue of 636.7 million, demonstrating a loss of 72.9 million. At the same time, the average number of employees of the organization, according to the Federal Tax Service, in 2020 exceeded 500 people.
At the end of last year, an attempt was made to withdraw Urengoyremstroydobycha from bankruptcy proceedings. In particular, the manager, as follows from the documents, received letters from Upstream Service LLC and Tyumengeologia JSC, from which it follows that Upstream Service offers cooperation in the framework of work to abandon wells at the Urengoyskoye field, and Tyumengeology is interested in attracting production capacities for work related to the overhaul and development of wells.
However, the first instance refused to transfer to external management, and the name of the same Sitnikov surfaced in the dispute. Now this decision, in particular, is being challenged by LLC Achimneftegazservis (Tyumen).
Recall that earlier Pravda UrFO reported in detail about conflicts over assets that are associated with Oleg Sitnikov, as well as about the recognition of a businessman guilty of committing crimes under paragraph “b” of part 2 of article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in three episodes “Evasion from payment of taxes committed on an especially large scale” and clause “b” of Part 2 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Illegal business associated with the extraction of income on an especially large scale”. The publication also said that Sitnikov himself associated his problems with a possible forceful seizure, recalling, in particular, ex-prosecutors of the YaNAO Nikolai Vetyugov and Alexander Gerasimenko.