Alltech left Sakhalin

As it became known to Kommersant, Alltech, owned by family members and former business partners of Dmitry Bosov, who died in 2020, decided to get rid of his last oil and gas asset, the Zalivny area on Sakhalin. Thus, since January, the Alltech structure “Pacific Oil Resources”, which owns the license for the site, began the liquidation procedure. Alltech explains the refusal of the license by the “economic inexpediency” of developing the site. Previously, the company planned to sell this asset, but did not succeed in this.

The Alltech group refused to develop the onshore Prizalivny area in the Sakhalin Region, Kommersant’s sources told Kommersant and confirmed in the company. The license for this area was owned by Pacific Oil Resources (100% from the Cypriot Elranio Holdings Ltd), which began the liquidation process in January of this year, follows from the data of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Alltech explained to Kommersant that they refused to develop the site due to “economic inexpediency.” The Ministry of Natural Resources did not answer Kommersant whether this license had already returned to the unallocated fund.

The bay area (area 167 sq. km) is located on the territory of the Nogliksky district of the Sakhalin region. The site is in the exploration stage, oil and gas resources in category D0 were estimated at about 9 million tons and 1 billion cubic meters, respectively. As a result of exploration, the company planned to increase reserves to 21 million tons in category 2P.

The shareholders of the Alltech group are the relatives of businessman Dmitry Bosov, who died in May 2020 (share – 64.26%), who was the main shareholder in the group. Another 21.42% belongs to Alltech itself, the rest belongs to Mr. Bosov’s former business partners – Dmitry Aga, Igor Makarov, Oleg Shemshuk and Rafael Filinov.

Pacific Oil Resources obtained a license for the Bay Area in 2008 and it was valid until April 2033. According to the financial statements of Pacific Oil, during the year from the date of signing the financial statements (March 29, 2022), the company did not plan to liquidate and was even preparing to drill well No. 6 Mezhdurechenskaya in 2022, albeit with a postponement. At the same time, Pacific Oil indicated that it did not finance exploration in 2020 due to the consequences of the coronavirus. The company’s loss for 2021 amounted to 7.6 million rubles.

As Kommersant reported, in 2021, after the death of Dmitry Bosov, Alltech tried to sell Pacific Oil, but to no avail. The main asset of the group was the largest anthracite producer Sibanthracite, which was sold to Albert Avdolyan in 2021. Dmitry Bosov also owned larger assets in the Russian oil and gas industry. So, until 2008, he owned West Siberian Resources, which was eventually sold to NK Alliance of the Bazhaev family. Alltech also owned licenses for the Korovinskoye and Kumzhinskoye gas fields in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug for a long time, on the basis of which it planned to build an LNG plant, first independently, then in partnership with Rosneft. In 2018, Rosneft withdrew from the project, and at the end of 2020, Alltech sold these fields to Vitaly Yuzhilin and his partners.

Against the backdrop of Western sanctions against the Russian oil industry, some small companies are turning away from the risks associated with working on new projects, says Dmitry Kasatkin from Kasatkin Consulting. This is due to both geopolitical uncertainty and the deterioration in the profitability of projects due to technological limitations.

Dmitry Kozlov