Jukos denies interest in purchase of Rafineria Gdanska

A spokesperson for Russian oil concern Jukos denied Gazeta Wyborcza's speculation yesterday that the company had submitted an official offer to purchase a 75% stake in oil refinery Rafineria Gdanska (RG). Treasury Minister Wieslaw Kaczmarek said that, at this stage, Jukos is not being taken into account in the privatization of Poland's second largest refinery. However he continued to say that "we should be aware that after ten years of a lack of Russian investment in Poland, it is bound to happen sometime." Zsolt Hernodi, the CEO of Hungarian energy company MOL, reinforced his interest in the purchase of the stake at a press conference yesterday. Rafineria Gdanska's net profit for the first three quarters of 2001 was zl. 88.2 million less than compared to the same time period last year, amounting to zl. 12.6 million. (Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 5; Rzeczpospolita, p. B4) A.K.