The move secures the future of PCK, a Rosneft-owned refinery in the northeastern German city of Schwedt, whose future was threatened by an impending EU embargo on Russian oil imports. PCK is located at the top of the “Druzhba” pipeline, which transports crude approximately 4,000 kilometers from central Russia directly to Schwedt. Authorities’ efforts to secure alternative oil supplies for the refinery have been complicated by the fact that Rosneft is its majority owner, controlling 54 percent of its shares. In a statement issued by the German economy ministry on Friday morning, the government is placing Rosneft Deutschland GmbH and RN Refining & Marketing GmbH under the guardianship of the Bundesnetzagentur (BNA), the country’s federal energy regulator. This puts Rosneft’s stakes in three German refineries — PCK in Schwedt, MiRo in Karlsruhe and Bayernoil in the Bavarian city of Vohburg — under BNA’s control. Rosneft accounts for about 12 percent of Germany’s oil refining capacity, making it one of the largest oil refiners in the country, the ministry said. The decision to seize control of Rosneft’s assets mirrors a move in April, when the government placed the German assets of Kremlin-controlled gas exporter Gazprom under the guardianship of BNA. The assets, which include Germany’s largest gas storage facility, Rehden, were owned by Gazprom Germania, which has since been renamed SEFE. The move for Rosneft is the latest in a series of measures by the German government to deal with the chaos caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has driven European gas and electricity prices to record levels. Germany has accused the Kremlin of “weaponizing” its energy exports to Europe by restricting the flow of natural gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline between Russia and Germany. As natural gas supplies dwindled, Berlin’s government moved to bail out Uniper, the country’s biggest importer of Russian gas, which has been pushed to the brink of insolvency. Uniper said this week that the government could increase its stake in the company to more than 50 percent.

The economy ministry said that by placing Rosneft’s German assets under guardianship, “we are compensating for the threat to the security of [Germany’s] energy supply and laying an essential foundation stone for the preservation and future of the Schwedt site.” PCK is one of the main suppliers of petrol, diesel, jet oil and fuel oil to Berlin and the surrounding area of ​​Brandenburg, and is considered a key element of East Germany’s energy infrastructure. Many residents of Schwedt began to fear for the future of the refinery after Germany signed the EU oil embargo and voluntarily pledged to end the use of Russian supplies delivered through Druzhba by the end of the year. The pipeline has a temporary exemption that allows countries in the line such as Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to continue receiving Russian supplies after December, but Germany and Poland have effectively opted out of using it after 2022.