REUTERS
Russia's OAO AK Transneft announces it has closed a deal to sell the PrykarpatZakhidtrans oil-product pipeline, which is located in Ukraine.
"The deal is closed now," the company said in an announcement on its website with reference to Transneft President Nikolay Tokarev. "This is a matter of commercial procedure. Everything has been done property there," he assured.
Transneft Press Secretary Igor Demin told Russian news agency RBC that Swiss-based International Trading Partners AG is the buyer of the asset. Demin did not elaborate on the sum of the deal.
The Swiss-based firm whose core business includes trade in energy resources, construction materials and equipment, in August 2015 secured the Russian antitrust agency's permit for the acquisition of 100% of shares of Transneft's subsidiary, Yugo-Zapad Transnefteprodukt, which owns PrykarpatZakhidtrans.
Transneft did not pump oil products across Ukraine, as the ownership of the pipeline was disputed in court.
PrykarpatZakhidtrans continued using the pipeline, which was built in the Soviet times as a strategically important facility, to ship Russian light fuel to Europe across Ukraine after it was transferred to Ukraine's ownership when the country gained its independence on August 24, 1991. Late in November 2014, the pipeline was returned to Ukraine by a court of first instance, which satisfied a claim filed by the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine way back in 2005.
PrykarpatZakhidtrans and a number of Russian joint-stock companies appealed the ruling; however, an appeals court and the Higher Economic Court of Ukraine left the decision unchanged on March 17, 2015.