For Schwedt, plugging the tangled metallic mesh of pipelines, distillation units and towering chimneys back into Moscow’s oil pump first means dealing with its convoluted legal structure.
After the war broke out, Berlin put the refinery under a temporary trusteeship, seizing Russian firm Rosneft’s majority stake. But Rosneft still owns its shares.
Any attempt to restart supplies from Moscow would therefore require the EU to lift its oil embargo, Poland to accept Russian crude passing through its pipeline network and Germany to force Rosneft to sell its shares to banks and suppliers on board, said Tibor Fedke, a senior energy lawyer at the Noerr law firm.
After that, signing new legal contracts would be “in theory very, very easy,” he said. While the new owner would still have to convince other shareholders and suppliers that they would not be hurt by future sanctions, it’s largely “a political matter,” Fedke added.
The story is similar for Nord Stream. European backers of the pipelines, which lie shattered deep under the Baltic Sea, have demanded that Russia’s Gazprom iron out its legal disputes before revival talk seriously begins. Germany’s regulator must also approve the flow of Moscow’s gas.
“Assuming there’s political will,” said Stern, the gas expert, that signoff can be done overnight, he said. The physical fix could be done in “months,” he added.