The owner of Rostov coal was found – Kommersant newspaper No.

The former Russian assets of DTEK Rinat Akhmetov – Donskoy Anthracite and the Obukhovskaya Mine Administration – disclosed that, as of March 2022, their owner was the former vice president of LUKOIL and Slavneft, Iskender Khalilov. The representative of the businessman refutes this. The enterprises were transferred from DTEK to Sberbank for debts and were sold by the bank in the fall of 2021, the end buyer was then unknown. Due to the hostilities, the enterprises lost the Ukrainian sales market, however, according to experts, Rostov coals can find a niche for themselves in the markets of Turkey and the Middle East.

Coal assets in the Rostov region, which were previously owned by DTEK Rinat Akhmetov, as of March 2022, became the property of the former vice president of LUKOIL and Slavneft, Iskender Agasalim oglu Khalilov. This is stated in the audit report on the annual accounting for 2021 of the Obukhovskaya and Donskoy Anthracite mine administration. In the documents, Mr. Khalilov, as of March 4, 2022, is named the beneficial owner of the Cypriot Fabcell Limited, which owns 100% of the shares of the Obukhovskaya and Donskoy Anthracite mine management.

However, the representative of the businessman told Kommersant that Iskender Khalilov and his family members are not related to these assets. “We cannot comment on the content of documents issued by outside companies,” he said.

Mr. Khalilov, as of the end of 2021, was a co-owner of the Kuzbass Fuel Company, a coal mining company in the Kemerovo region. His son Rahman Khalilov is the chairman of the railroad operator Railgo.

Sberbank was the main creditor of Obukhovskaya and Donskoy Anthracite. In April 2022, DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko explained in an interview with Ekonomicheskaya Pravda that the shares of enterprises were pledged by Sberbank and, when the companies defaulted on the loan, “were written off against this debt.” As Kommersant wrote on May 4, 2022, back in November 2021, Sberbank sold the shares of both enterprises at auction, as well as the rights to claim on the loans issued by them to the Cypriot Valleyton Investments. The deal amounted to $230 million, while the documentation for the auction says that the debt on the syndicated loan was $446.8 million. Who exactly was the real beneficiary of Valleyton Investments is unknown.

Obukhovskaya and Donskoy Anthracite jointly produced 3.5 million tons of coal in 2021. The revenue of Obukhovskaya was 13 billion rubles, Donskoy Anthracite – 2.8 billion rubles. The Obukhovskaya report says that 89.6% of coal in 2021 was sold to DTEK’s trading structure – DTEK Trading SA. Shipment was stopped “in connection with the introduction of economic sanctions against the Russian Federation.” Accounts receivable for coal supplied by DTEK is RUB 9.9 billion. Instead of DTEK, the company wanted to ship coal to other buyers: contracts were concluded with the Swiss Adelon AG, the Cypriot Eco Carbon, the Polish Elbar Katowice, the Bulgarian Solvay Soda and Deepblue Marine Brokerage and Tovarge Limited from the UAE. It was assumed that 90% of the coal would be shipped to them. However, the EU has imposed an embargo on Russian coal imports from August 2022.

Coals from the Donets Basin have traditionally been bought by industrial consumers in the Middle East and Turkey, says NRA’s Sergey Grishunin. The decrease in consumption by Ukraine can be easily replaced by supplies to other markets. Moreover, today anthracite is often used by the iron and steel industry as a pulverized coal fuel. “The only drawback of the assets is the rather high level of production costs, so in the current market conditions, deliveries over very long distances may be difficult. Nevertheless, the capacity of the Middle East market and the Turkish market for these assets should be enough,” says Mr. Grishunin.

Evgeny Zainullin