The KKCG Group, founded and owned by Karel Komárek, has completed the acquisition of a newly-rebuilt oil storage and pumping station in Oktyabrsk in the Samara region of Russia following approval from Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service. KKCG bought the 100 percent stake in the terminal from the private Russian gas company Itera Group for an undisclosed price.      

The terminal by the town of Oktyabrsk has a thruput capacity of 3.4 million tons per year and lies on road, rail and shipping routes as well as on the Druzhba pipeline through which up to 75 percent of oil supplies to the Czech Republic are shipped.

“We chose the KKCG Group as a profile investor first and foremost because we are convinced of their high level of professional readiness to manage the complex and to carefully study the idiosyncrasies of the Russian [oil] market. I’m sure that the Czech company will [prove to] be a serious owner of the terminal in Oktyabrsk and will provide new impetus for the terminal’s development. It’s important that the deal has opened the way for our further cooperation in other joint investment projects, the options for which we are discussing,” Itera Holding CEO, Igor Semenyuta said in a statement on Monday.

KKCG spokesman, Dan Plovajko, told Czech Position that Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service okayed the deal at the end of June following which various legal formalities have been finalized.    

“The acquisition off the oil terminal is the KKCG Group’s first downstream project on the Russian market. … We believe that our cooperation with the Itera Group will continue on other projects both in the Russian Federation and in other regions in the world,” Pavel Šaroch, KKCG’s Chief Investment Officer, said.              

The Itera Group, one of the largest independent Russian gas producers and vendors, said it was selling the terminal in order to finance investments in its core area of gas production.

The deal was first announced in March this year when the Czech investment group said it expected to complete the deal in the first half of the year. In April, however, Russia’s antimonopoly office demanded more information from the Czech company.

KKCG-owned oil exploration, extraction and processing company Moravské naftové doly (MND) has extraction licenses for several oilfields in Russia’s Ulyanovsk region which neighbors the Samara region. The KKCG Group controls assets with a value of almost Kč 30 billion and employs around 1,500 people.