We should not belittle the work of all the experts who literally did not blink and prepared documents around the clock and discussed them with the US. There was no way we could have obtained a derogation without lifting a finger and without fulfilling the requirement that funds not flow to the parent company. This was said in the studio of "Na Fokus" on NOVA by the Minister of Energy Zhecho Stankov.
Regarding the special commercial manager of the refinery, Zhecho Stankov noted that the nomination of Rumen Spetsov was discussed at the Joint Management Council. "His task is to monitor and control the cash flow of funds, so the Director of the National Revenue Agency is the right person, because he has an overview of the payment system throughout the country. We are not talking about a person who will turn the taps on the installations in the refinery or fill up at the gas stations. Mr. Spetsov will prove that he can handle the job", the minister said.
According to him, the US is a partner of the Bulgarian government, but the derogation was the result of serious efforts. "The US Secretary of Energy personally supported the entire process, we met four times. The teams in the Council of Ministers and our leader with his contacts in the White House, as well as the Prime Minister, led to the logical solution of things, with which we received a derogation from the US and the UK. I, as a minister, had two main tasks for the last three weeks - until we received a deferral, to guarantee the security of fuel supplies for all Bulgarian citizens. This way, there will be no panic on the market. The second task was to avoid speculation with prices. "We managed to convince our partners that funds from the subsidiaries of the directly sanctioned "Lukoil" will not reach it and will not be involved in the military actions in Ukraine," Stankov commented.
According to him, a second scenario was also discussed - in the absence of a derogation by November 21, when the US sanctions come into force: "Lukoil Neftokhim" would not be able to buy crude oil or pay its bills. Then we would be in a critical situation in which we had to be sure that we had sufficient quantities of fuel. We were monitoring on a daily basis. We have ready-made refined products - gasoline for six months, diesel for four and jet fuel for two. The state stores fuel for 30 days, and their sellers - for 60 days. This is what the 90-day reserves do. "In addition, Bulgaria stores fuel abroad for 4-5 days," the minister noted.