The Skigin family holds half of St. Petersburg Oil Terminal JSC, while Elena Vasilyeva owns the remaining 50 percent and has blocked management decisions. This corporate stalemate has made it difficult to appoint a director, and the leading candidate, the general director of Petromar SPB, decided not to take the helm after assessing the enterprise’s conditions.
I don’t like it
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Petromar SPB engages in ancillary activities related to maritime transport. The shareholders include the terminal’s long term counterpart Fuel Technologies headed by Alexander Doroshenko and Elena Vasilyeva, who chairs the board of PNT. A management source notes that Doroshenko is intimately familiar with the company, its people, and the contractual landscape, which underscores how intricate the situation already is given the ongoing governance dispute. Sevryukov ultimately turned down the offer, and the source stresses that the state of the documents, staff, and agreements is likely unsettled in light of the stalemate. It is not hard to imagine the depth of disarray that can arise when leadership struggle leaves routine processing and record keeping in question, and when decisions hinge on fragile lines of authority. Industry observers say the situation mirrors broader governance risks in similar corporate ecosystems.
independent director
When asked whether the PNT turmoil stems from Elena Vasilyeva and her team, a management contact offered cautious language. The essential point is that true independence requires an assessment that is not compromised by access to management, a condition that has been hard to verify over more than three years. Sevryukov presents himself as an independent director who does not owe allegiance to either side and has built a reputation for avoiding positions dictated by anyone in court. A colleague characterizes his approach as a deliberate effort to stay objective in a charged environment.
He is described as having been invited to PNT precisely because he is seen as someone who can view the situation without favoritism and without taking directions from a particular faction. Although he knows both the Skigin family and Elena Vasilyeva well, he is portrayed as having no formal ties to either side in the corporate dispute. The decision to decline the offer is explained not by personal sentiment but by a reluctance to take on the accumulated problems that have persisted for years in the enterprise.
Sevryukov’s candidacy is framed around the notion that an independent manager can provide a clear, objective assessment and help reset governance standards. His track record is presented as evidence that he does not align with any single interest and that his detachment is a unique asset in a landscape marked by competing claims and complex contracts. The broader takeaway is that independent leadership is valued for its capacity to detach decision making from the friction between principal shareholders, even when those parties are personally known to the prospective director.
Confrontation
The institutional clash surrounding the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal emerged prominently in 2022. Previously, Sergei Vasiliev owned 50 percent of the terminal, while the other half was held by Mikhail, Evgeniy, and Polina Skigin. The shares were controlled through the Cypriot entity St. George, which transferred to Vasiliev’s wife Elena in 2023. The Skigins contend that the transfer chain is unlawful and are pursuing a court challenge to the sequence of transactions. The terminal remains a linchpin in the sector; it began operations in the Oil Loading Zone of the Leningrad Port in 1996 and has since grown into the Baltic region’s largest Russian terminal for oil product transfers, with an annual capacity of around 12.5 million tons and occupying a central role in the St. Petersburg Grand Port’s loading and unloading activity.