In the money
Oil swill
ANNOUNCING the latest sanctions against Russia last month (“a huge blow for Putin’s war machine”), chancellor Rachel Reeves also promised: “We will ban imports of oil products refined in third countries from Russian-origin crude oil.” But this is likely to prove easier said than done given that Russian oil can be sent via countries which don’t sanction it, then sent on in a different form. And those who source oil from questionable origins are nothing if not persistent – as ongoing product-dumping in the engine oil business suggests.
Eye 1646 first highlighted the activities of engine oil importer Lubriage, trading as Mannol, last year. It is controlled by German national Erik Sudheimer (pictured) and buys its products from Dubai (mostly) and Lithuanian companies within the Cyprus-headquartered SCT Lubricants group owned by his uncle, Dubai and Switzerland resident Juri Sudheimer, who holds Russian and German passports.
Mannol has been destroying UK engine oil companies’ business for a couple of years by dumping product on to the British market at vastly below costs. A complaint from Derbyshire-based Aztec Oils prompted an investigation by the UK’s post-Brexit Trades Remedies Authorities. After finding dumping, in May the TRA imposed provisional tariffs of 59.4 percent on products from the UAE and 49.6 percent on those from Lithuania.
The purpose of these levies is to increase the price of imports, as companies have to cover the costs. But if profit or loss are secondary to moving money and products, companies will absorb the levies while keeping prices down, as Lubriage did. (A few weeks ago, the TRA recommended its final tariff levels. These included 85 percent for imports from SCT’s Lithuanian operation and 34 percent from its Dubai associates.)
Dubai continues to be a major importer and blender (into other products) of Russian oil, largely at its Jebel Ali freeport. And Juri Sudheimer has a long record of dealings with the murkier elements out east. SCT has been shown to have received payments from entities including UK “limited liability partnerships” linked to notorious “laundromats” from the former-Soviet region. It has also circulated funds via offshore-registered companies in Cyprus, British Anguilla and elsewhere; and has a record a few years ago of buying from the Naftan refinery in Belarus (sanctioned by the US in 2011, though not by the EU until 2022).