Russia’s largest independent oil-processing plant loses one of Putin's ex-classmates and gains another, sources tell ‘Kommersant’

Former Putin classmate Ilham Rahimov has replaced another peer from the president’s university days at the Antipinsky oil refinery, Russia’s largest independent oil-processing plant. Sources told the newspaper Kommersant that Ilham Rahimov, a partner at the “Kievskaya Ploshchad” real-estate group, has acquired shares in the Antipinsky refinery. According to the newspaper, Rahimov and former Lukoil senior vice president Valery Subbotin are the ultimate beneficiaries of the offshore firm “Nitron Investments,” through which a chain of other companies has a stake in “Sokar Energy Resource,” the owner of 80 percent of the Antipinsky refinery.

Nikolai Egorov, the other former Putin classmate at the refinery, has reportedly sold his 20-percent stake, which he first acquired in 2008, to a company called “Maslior Investment,” whose owners are unknown. Three sources told Kommersant that the buyer was Valery Subbotin, who may have paid as much as $25 million.

Two sources told Kommersant that Subbotin now has a controlling interest in the Antipinsky refinery. The newspaper says Rahimov’s stake is no more than 7.4 percent, Sberbank owns 32 percent, and 9.6 percent belongs to SOCAR (the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic).

The Antipinsky oil refinery filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, after suspending operations on several occasions because of a lack of funds to pay for crude-oil deliveries, Reuters reported. Sberbank had been its main creditor.

In July 2019, the refinery’s founder, Dmitry Mazurov, was arrested on charges brought by Sberbank CEO Herman Gref that he embezzled money from Sberbank.