energy
Federal government extends trust administration for PCK owners
The refinery in the Uckermark in north-eastern Brandenburg supplies large parts of north-eastern Germany with fuel. photo
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
The trust administration over the PCK refinery in Schwedt was actually supposed to expire in September. But due to concerns about the energy supply, it is now being extended.
The federal government is extending the Trust management for the majority owners of the PCK oil refinery in Schwedt, Brandenburg. The Federal Ministry of Economics announced this at the request of the German Press Agency.
In order to secure the energy supply, the federal government is extending the trust administration order for Rosneft Deutschland GmbH and RN Refining & Marketing GmbH on the basis of the Energy Security Act until March 10, 2024. The trust administration previously ran until mid-September.
State Secretary Michael Kellner said that the federal government has been in close contact with, among others, the Polish government since last year on measures to ensure security of supply. “The location has been consolidated in the past few months. There have been no supply bottlenecks. The financially broadly supported package “Securing PCK and accelerating transformation in the East German refinery locations and ports” will align the future with the location and thus secure jobs.”
Avoid Russian oil
The refinery in Schwedt in the Uckermark supplies large parts of north-eastern Germany with fuel. It is majority owned by two daughters of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft. Until the end of 2022, PCK mainly processed crude oil from Russia. As part of the sanctions against Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the German government decided not to use Russian oil. As an alternative, oil comes via Danzig and Rostock as well as from Kazakhstan.
In September 2022, the federal government imposed a trusteeship on Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing, the majority owners of PCK. He justified this with an impending threat to security of supply as a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine. The federal government had complained that the majority owners had no interest in turning away from Russian oil. The federal government extended the status by six months in March. With trust management, the Federal Network Agency practically has the say in the Rosneft subsidiaries and in the refinery on behalf of the federal government.