Albpetrol clashes with Bankers Petroleum

Bankers declared that all this is untrue and that there is no legal offence. The document owned by Top Channel, which is confirmed officially by Albpetrol and the Ministry of Energy, brings suspicions that the Canadian company might have sold huge quantities of low quality fuel in our domestic market. This fuel is used by oil producing companies for their production processes.

This fuel is injected in wells to dilute the crude oil underground and making it easier to pump it out. Albpetrol experts say that the import figures declared by Bankers create suspicions that a huge part of this diluting fuel has been sold to the consumers. Experts have reached this conclusion after analyzing the quantity that has been imported from Bankers with the quantity that they really needed in the production process.

The document says that the comparison proves huge discrepancies, with almost twice the amount. Only from February 2011 to 2012, the quantity imported by Bankers is 51.710 cubic meters of diluting fuels more than the quantity that has been needed for production. By the end of the last year, the new Albpetrol leaders asked Bankers to explain the discrepancies. As the document notes, the Canadian company has not given any credible explanation, and according to the Albpetrol experts, this makes them suspect that the fuel has been sold illegally for consumers.

Based on this document, Top Channel contacted with the Canadian company, which denies the suspicions categorically. According to Bankers, every liter of these products has been approved, audited and documented by the Albanian authorities, and has been used only for the licensed operations in the Patos-Marinza sources. Bankers says that the increased level of import was due to the increased level of oil production, which has reached a historic level.

This document marks the first clash between the Albanian authorities and the company, which is the biggest investor in Albania for fuels. The doubts, according to Albpetrol, include not only the illegal selling of fuels, but also a fiscal evasion, since the diluting materials have been excluded from the excise and VAT, while on the market they have been sold as fuel that is ready for consumption. Bankers has not admitted any of these accusations, but both parties are expected to meet and discuss a solution to the problem created with this document.

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