Orlen Trading Switzerland donated approximately USD 400 million for oil supplies from Venezuela, the company's management announced on Tuesday. The money paid to intermediaries was lost and the raw material never reached the country. The largest amount of funds went to a 25-year-old from Hong Kong who founded his own company a few years earlier.
As reported by the new OTS management board, appointed at the end of February 2024, advance payments were made to unsecured intermediaries at the beginning of December 2023, and the planned deliveries were to take place either in December 2023 or in January 2024. From October 18, 2023 . until April 18 this year. the so-called window, because at that time sanctions on oil from Venezuela were suspended.
Prepayments went to intermediaries, the most – approximately USD 240 million to one of the intermediaries, a company founded in 2021 in Dubai by a 25-year-old citizen of China or Hong Kong – transferred by the new management.
The loading dates for the tankers chartered by OTS were between December and January, but the ships were not loaded in Venezuela, the new management said. He emphasized that the previous management board, in office until the end of February 2024, did not take any action to implement the contracts or terminate them. At the end of February, the company paid approximately PLN 600,000. dollars a day for the parking of six tankers, and the bill for the entire parking amount already reached USD 30 million.
Orlen Trading Switzerland reveals details
The new management informed that the supply contracts had to be terminated, and on this basis, the contracts for the charter of tankers, which had been idle since December, had to be terminated.
The OTS management board emphasized that the intention was to sell oil and products from Venezuela before April 18, so that when the “window” closed, the company would not be left with sanctioned goods, which would have serious consequences. Orlen did not violate sanctions, and no traces of Iranian or Russian oil were found in the OTS company's documents – emphasized the new management board. He assured that the trading company would continue its operations.
Orlen's press office confirmed that the prosecutor's office has already received a notification regarding the actions of the company's former management board towards OTS. On April 10, Orlen announced that due to OTS losing PLN 1.6 billion in prepayments for undelivered crude oil, the company plans to adjust its annual results for 2023 by this amount.
Orlen Trading Switzerland trades in refined petroleum products and petrochemical products. According to the information posted on the company's website, it supplies products from five Orlen refineries, but also from other leading global suppliers – both private and state-owned – it was noted.
The Orlen Group is a concern that has refineries in Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, as well as a network of gas stations in these countries, as well as in Germany, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. It has an oil and gas extraction segment, a petrochemical segment and an energy segment, including renewable energy sources.
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