MOSCOW, August 13 (RAPSI) – The Eighth Commercial Court of Appeals has dismissed the Antipinsky oil refinery’s petition for bankruptcy without prejudice, according to court records.

The court has therefore granted an appeal filed by Transoil company overturning a lower court’s ruling of May 21 accepting the bankruptcy petition for hearing. Currently, several applications for the refinery’s bankruptcy are pending in the Tyumen Regional Commercial Court.

In July, Promsvyazbank filed a claim to include the Antipinsky oil refinery’s 7.7-billion-ruble debt (over $120 million) to the financial organization in the creditors’ list.

Earlier, the court adjourned the Antipinsky oil refinery’s petition for its own bankruptcy for August 8.

The petition was filed on May 20, several weeks after the High Court of Justice in London granted a lawsuit by VTB Commodities Trading to freeze the refinery’s assets worth 225 million euros. The ruling extended to the Antipinsky property in the Siberian city of Tyumen and petroleum reserves stored at the tanker Polar Rock in the northern port of Murmansk. Moreover, the defendant was prohibited from selling its vacuum gasoil without the sanction of VTB Commodities Trading before the case hearing.

As part of this claim, the trading house filed an injunction application with the Commercial Court of Murmansk Region. However, the Russian court refused to seize oil products at the tanker Polar Rock worth 197.1 million euros upon the VTB Commodities Trading petition.

Antipinsky is a private, not a state-run refinery which capacity exceeds 9 million tonnes per year. The refinery occupies its rightful place among the largest players of the Russian oil refining industry, forming the Urals and West-Siberian oil refinery market, and is known abroad, the company’s official website says.

Reportedly, in recent months the refinery has repeatedly halted its operations because of a cash crunch to pay for crude oil supplies.