Petersburg Fuel Company

The Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK, in Russian: Петербургская топливная компания, ПТК) is a joint stock company of Saint Petersburg, Russia, specializing mostly in gasoline refining, storage, transportation and retailing, founded in September 1994, after a fuel supply crisis had hit the city hard. Until 2001, when it became an open joint stock holding, the company had been a closed joint stock company.

As of July 2002, it was the leading gasoline retail operator in Saint Petersburg and run 94 out of 270 gasoline filling stations in the city and several stations in the neighboring regions. As of Summer 2003 it had 69 stations and 28 percent of sales followed by Phaeton Gasoline Company with 36 stations and a 14-percent market share. According to its website, it currently (February 2008) has 84 stations in St Petersburg and 111 elsewhere in Russia, including 10 in Moscow (of which at least 4 were formerly supplied by Yukos). The company also has acquired the Rzhevka Airport after its bankruptcy.

Director Generals

Chairpersons of the Board of Directors

Shareholder structure

(as of January 2007)

History

The first board of directors and managing committee of the company were elected on September 13, 1994. The company was organized by the City Property Management Committee of Saint Petersburg City Administration, Property Management Committee of Leningrad Oblast Administration, Baltic Sea Steamship Company, Northwestern Steamship Company, Oktyabrskaya Railway Directorate, Saint Petersburg Seaport, Vladimir Putin signed a decree granting the company a virtual monopoly over retail gasoline sales in the city, including supply to the huge fleet of city ambulances, cop cars, buses and taxis. The company began to develop its filling stations network.

On March 22, 1996, Ziya Bazhayev was appointed Vice-President of the company. On June 4, 1996 the company agreed to cooperate with YUKOS until 2000. In September 1996 the company for the first time bought 20 thousand tons of crude oil to process it on the Kirishinefteorgsintez refinery.

On October 13, 1998 President of the Company Dmitry Filippov died from wounds three days after the explosion of a radio-controlled mine. , In 1996 he took part in the elections for the position of St. Petersburg governor, and as of 1998 was an authorized delegate of Gennady Seleznyov, Speaker of the State Duma. On February 16, 1999 Yury Shutov, a deputy in St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly and a prominent businessman, was arrested on charges of having organized this and other contract murders.

Andrei Stepanov, in turn, unsuccessfully took part as a contender in the 1999 St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly election. The company's president Yuri Antonov served as vice-governor of Saint Petersburg from 1997 till 2002.

In 2001 the company was restructured in an open joint stock holding, and the City Property Committee of the Saint Petersburg City Administration under Valery Nazarov lost 13.2 out of its 14.5% share as a result.

In May 2002 Gryzlov sent a commission to St. Petersburg to investigate corruption allegations in the city's gasoline market. The investigation was started after the Faeton Gasoline Company, second largest gasoline retailer in the city, had complained to both Gryzlov and the Prosecutor General's Office in April that the Saint Petersburg City Administration gave preferences to the Petersburg Fuel Company. However, this had no evident consequences.

In August 2006, the company's president Yuri Antonov announced that the company would like to sell its stations to the oil company Surgutneftegaz, its supplier of gasoline, and that Gazprom and Surgutneftegaz might build a storage and distribution terminal near St. Petersburg on a 7 km² site owned by the Petersburg Fuel Company. ,

References and notes

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