KIEV, April 22 (RAPSI) – The property and land of the Odessa refinery will be seized by court decision, effective April 24, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s press service announced Tuesday.

The Odessa refinery was turned over to Russia’s VTB Bank as collateral under a loan issued to Ukrainian billionaire Serhiy Kurchenko’s VETEK group of companies. 
Acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov previously said that the ministry planned to contest the transfer of ownership to the Russian bank.

The decision to seize the property was part of an investigation into the alleged smuggling of petrochemicals at the Odessa refinery after an inspection was initiated there in late February.

In early April, VTB notified Kiev that Russia would take action if the asset was nationalized. The Vetek oil and gas trading group bought the Odessa refinery from Russia’s LUKoil in February 2013.

According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the inspected documents imply that the petrochemicals that were imported into Ukraine for export over the past two years never left Ukraine, but were kept in storage for sale to clients in Ukraine. The investigators claim that these transactions amounted to about 36 billion hryvnias ($3.2 billion).

Over 75,000 metric tons of petrochemicals have been seized. The Odessa refinery’s management is being investigated for compliance with tax and customs legislation. A pretrial investigation of the smuggling case is also underway.

The Odessa refinery stopped operations on February 25. Nearly all of its top managers have been dismissed.