UK expands Sanctions Exception for Lukoil’s Bulgarian operations

Britain has extended its sanctions exception to include two more subsidiaries of Lukoil’s Bulgarian operations – Lukoil-Bulgaria Bunker and Lukoil Aviation Bulgaria. Teh British government announced the expansion today, building on a previous exception issued on November 14th.

The original license was designed to maintain operations at the Burgas refinery and associated gas stations following their seizure by Russia’s Lukoil. It now encompasses “Lukoil Bulgaria” EOOD, “Lukoil Neftohim Burgas” AD, “Lukoil-Bulgaria Bunker”, and “Lukoil Aviation Bulgaria”, along with their subsidiaries, allowing transactions until February 2026.

this move follows the imposition of sanctions by both the UK and the USA in mid-November against major Russian oil producers, including Lukoil and Rosneft, due to their alleged financing of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The license from the British Financial Sanctions Office permits the transfer of payments and economic resources to and from the specified Lukoil entities.

Lukoil Bulgaria Under Special Management

Thus, at the end of last week, the government appointed the executive director of the National Revenue Agency (NRA) Rumen Spetsov as a special manager of the Lukoil companies after an exceptional meeting of the Security Council convened by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.

At the beginning of this week, Spetsov was entered in the Commercial Register as a special commercial manager of “Lukoil Neftohim Burgas” AD. Spetsov, together with the Swiss citizen Evgeny Manyakhin, was named as the legal representative of the company.

One of his first important decisions was to release Evgeni Manyakhin as chairman of the Board of Directors of “Lukoil Neftohim Burgas” AD.