Fake Russian Company Alleges It Runs Lithuania’s LNG Terminal and FSRU Independence

An apparently fictitious Russian oil company has made claims on its website, volgaoil-tankfarm.ru, that the Klaipeda LNG terminal and floating storage and re-gasification unit Independence, off Lithuania's Baltic coast, are in fact owned and run by it, not Lithuania. On the webpage, which is very similar to the front page of website run by Klaipedos Nafta, the Russian company, Volga Oil, says it provides to the Baltic region a range of services through the LNG facility and FSRU it allegedly runs.

In a statement to the media, Klaipedos Nafta says it is distancing itself from the aforementioned company and is considering its future actions against it.

“We see it as an attempt to discredit activities that Klaipedos Nafta carries out," Klaipedos Nafta says in its statement. "Notably, Klaipedos Nafta possesses all measures of protection, therefore the incident does not have any effect on the strategic object, i.e. Klaipeda Oil and [the] liquefied natural gas terminal, which is operated by Klaipedos Nafta."

It continued: "The company will assume all possible means, including legal actions to block the webpage. Klaipedos Nafta is not involved in any business relations with Volga Oil because the ostensible company under the name is effectively non-existent."

Lithuanian Energy minister and former chief of Klaipedos Nafta, Rokas Masiulis, was not caught by surprise by the attack against Klaipedos Nafta.

“I believe somebody in Russia does not like the project [the LNG terminal] that Lithuania has successfully implemented," he said. "As has been noted by both some Russian media and Lithuanian politicians, there are attempts to belittle our achievement and to portray it as a failure or oddity, to discourage us from being proud of it. I believe it is not a coincidence as we see the ongoing efforts aimed to discredit the terminal and show it as failure, not success, though all see that the gas price in Lithuania has fallen most in Europe, which is achievement by our state."

He emphasised that since the launch of the terminal on December 3, 2014 Lithuania has been able to fully satisfy its need for natural gas and is not dependent on a single gas supplier.

Volga Oil website could not be reached after the fake announcement on November 9.