Russia seizes St. Petersburg Oil Terminal stake from family of co-founder, linked to 1990s organized crime and Vladimir Putin

The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has ruled in favor of the Russian government, ordering the seizure of a 55% stake in JSC St. Petersburg Oil Terminal (PNT), according to reports by RBC and Kommersant. The ownership share will be transferred to the state.

The court upheld a claim filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office. The defendants in the case were three Cyprus-based offshore companies — Tujunga Enterprises, Novomor, and Almont Holdings — which are owned by the children of one of the terminal’s co-founders, the late Dmitry Skigin.

The Prosecutor General’s Office sought the nationalization of the stake, arguing that Mikhail, Evgeny, and Polina Skigin are citizens of foreign countries. Mikhail and Evgeny hold German passports, while Polina holds citizenship of both France and Russia. The court concluded that Skigin’s heirs should have obtained approval from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) before taking possession of shares in a company deemed strategically significant for Russia.

During the hearings, representatives for the defendants argued that the Skigins had inherited their stake in the terminal back in 2003 following their father's death, while the law only came into force in 2008. The defense plans to appeal the court’s decision.

The St. Petersburg Oil Terminal was established in 1996 on the site of the former oil-handling district of the Leningrad port. It is the largest Russian terminal for transshipping oil products on the Baltic Sea, with an annual throughput capacity of 12.5 million tons. In 2022, JSC St. Petersburg Oil Terminal reported revenue of 6.6 billion rubles (over $96 million) and a net profit of 3.6 billion rubles (over $52 million).

The remaining 45% of the terminal’s shares are held by Elena Vasilieva, who inherited the stake from her husband, Sergey Vasiliev — a former co-owner of the terminal.

According to the Monaco police, Dmitry Skigin had close ties with Ilya Traber, who has been linked to the Tambov organized crime group — and to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The independent Russian outlet TV Rain has referred to Ilya Traber as “the only known living crime boss whom Vladimir Putin has admitted having connections to.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Novaya Gazeta that Traber and Dmitry Skigin had collaborated in the 1990s on a project to construct the oil terminal and, over the course of that work, were in frequent contact with officials in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office — where Putin was employed at the time.

Further details about the business dealings of the Skigins, Traber, and Vasiliev can be found in The Insider’s January 2018 investigation.