/ world today news/ The Risk Management Laboratory, headed by former Prime Minister Ivan Kostov and operating at the New Bulgarian University, admitted that it made a mistake in its analysis of Lukoil’s pricing policy; writes “Diary”.
A report presented recently stated that the Russian-owned company submitted false data to the relevant state authorities and thus harmed the budget with unpaid taxes and consumers with unreasonably high prices.
A message appeared on the laboratory’s website yesterday, saying that “we made a technical error in our 107 report by not taking into account the lower density of the Ural crude oil grade (which Lukoil Neftohim uses – note ed.) This eliminates a key basis of our analysis”.
It is specified that the use in the methodology of the real density of the “Ural” crude oil leads to the opposite conclusion for the applied prices, which, however, also does not seem credible.
“With our report, we did not attack the refinery, and therefore we do not consider that we owe an apology. Scientific (and civil) freedom is to seek, to find and to be wrong. One’s doubts cannot cause damage either in science or in a democratic civil society. Especially since the question posed at the beginning remains unanswered”, they add from there and emphasize that some doubts remain about the operation of the refinery.
“Final conclusions about raw material prices can only be made by a revision or inspection of the documents for the import of crude oil,” add the authors of the report. Not long ago, the head of the Customs Agency, Vanyo Tanov, announced that an audit had begun at Lukoil.
From the official reports of “Lukoil Neftohim Burgas” AD, it can be seen that after the privatization in 1999 (when the prime minister of Bulgaria was Ivan Kostov – note ed.) the company made regular profits up to and including 2005, the laboratory points out.
“In the period analyzed by us from 2006 to 2014 (there are published reports up to 2013 inclusive) with the exception of 2007, in all other years the Refinery recorded losses and did not charge and pay corporate tax. The losses, as it appears , are not due to higher than the stock market prices of the main raw material. They are not due to lower than European producer prices of the fuels sold on the domestic market,” they added. These and other widely shared doubts arising from them need to be answered, analysts urge.
“It will be an expression of openness and transparency if Lukoil Neftohim Burgas AD does this in an appropriate way. This remains an obligation of the competent Bulgarian authorities,” the publication concludes.
After the report was made public, Lukoil announced that they would sue Kostov and published paid notices in several newspapers refuting the reported data.
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