| Amic Energy | |
| Type: | GmbH |
| Industry: | Fuel retail |
| Founded: | 2013 |
| Hq Location Country: | Austria |
| Key People: | Günter Maier (Managing Director) |
Amic Energy is an Austrian company that operates a network of 470 mobile and stationary filling stations and 20 charging stations for electric vehicles in Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. The company is headquartered in Vienna. As of 2020, Amic Energy is the fifth-largest network in Ukraine by sales volume and holds 6.7% of the Ukrainian retail fuel market.
Amic Energy Management GmbH was founded in 2013. It started as an investment company looking for low-cost and problematic assets for further restructuring. One of the company's strategic goals was to invest in undervalued assets in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the energy infrastructure sector. Initially, the company considered investing in power plants in Romania and Bulgaria, as well as other projects in Poland. However, when Lukoil announced the sale of its assets in Eastern Europe in 2014, Amic Energy became interested in the possibility of acquiring a filling station network in Ukraine. When Lukoil's management commented on its plans to sell in July 2014, it said that it wanted to focus on Russian projects, as international sanctions on Russia made it difficult for the company to access capital. Since 2014, Lukoil has sold assets in the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary. For example, Lukoil's assets in the Czech Republic were bought by the Hungarian MOL Group, in Hungary and Slovakia by the Hungarian company Norm Benzinkút Kft, in Estonia by the local network Olerex.
The main agreement between Amic Energy and Lukoil to purchase all the shares of Lukoil-Ukraine, which owned about 240 petrol stations and 6 oil depots in Ukraine, was announced in July 2014. At that time, Lukoil controlled 6% of the retail market in Ukraine, behind the petrol station networks of Privat group, WOG, and OKKO companies. The total value of the deal was estimated at US$280 million (€256.5 million). In April 2015, the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine approved the company Amic Energy Management GmbH (Vienna, Austria) to take control of Lukoil-Ukraine CFI (Kyiv). In May 2015, Lukoil-Ukraine CFI changed its name to Amic Ukraine CFI, and the company's petrol stations began to change their names.
In February 2016, Amic Energy entered into an agreement with Lukoil Europe Holdings BV to acquire a network of approximately 230 petrol stations in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland (UAB Lukoil Baltija in Lithuania, SIA Lukoil Baltija R in Latvia, and Lukoil Polska sp. z o.o. in Poland). Lukoil's management justified the company's plans to sell assets in Latvia and Lithuania with the anti-Russian sentiment in these countries. The completion of the acquisition was announced in April 2016. and UAB Luktarna took over the retail networks in Latvia and Lithuania, respectively, as part of the deal. In 2018, Amic Polska began rebranding its petrol stations in Poland to the Amic Energy brand. The rebranding was completed in July 2019. In October 2019, Amic Energy acquired two petrol stations in Cieszyn from BP, bringing the company's total number of petrol stations in Poland to 116.
Since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Amic Energy has continued to provide fuel to consumers at gas stations and to the country's critical infrastructure, including supplying jet fuel to the Ukrainian Defense Forces. As of February 25, 2022, two Amic Ukraine gas stations located near the Antonivskyi Bridge in Kherson were destroyed as Russian troops were passing through the bridge. On February 28, 2022, the company's oil depot near Borodianka (Kyiv region) was also destroyed. It was later revealed that Amic Ukraine had shared the oil depot's coordinates with the Ukrainian government for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to destroy the depot after its seizure by Russian troops. The company estimates that the shelling of the depot resulted in the loss of approximately €4 million worth of assets. As of February 2023, 36 petrol stations of Amic Ukraine were damaged, looted, or destroyed, and 19 others were still in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. As of April 2023, the company estimated that €20 million worth of the its assets (gas stations, oil depot, and fuel) had been damaged due to hostilities.
In January 2023, Amic Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Russia with the ECHR. In the lawsuit, the company claimed hostile actions against the civilian population of Ukraine, its sovereign territory, Amic Energy employees, and the company as a whole that demonstrate Russia's gross violation of Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful possession of property. In particular, after the illegal seizure of certain territories of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine by Russian troops, the property of Amic Ukraine was seized, looted, and in some cases destroyed by the Russian army and the occupation authorities controlled by the terrorist country. The preliminary amount of damages claimed in the lawsuit is over ₴300 million (€8.5 million). In April 2023, the ECHR opened proceedings on the claim of Amic Ukraine against Russia. The case is entitled "Company with foreign investments Amic Ukraine v. Russia".
The company estimates that since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as of 2024, Amic Ukraine has provided more than ₴92.1 million (€2.17 million) in support of the government and people of Ukraine, military units of the Security and Defense Forces, state institutions, charitable organizations, and personnel.
Amic Energy Holding GmbH holds 100% of the shares in Amic Energy Management GmbH. As of 2015, Amic Energy Holding GmbH was owned by three Austrian citizens: lawyer Johannes Klezl-Norberg, investor Manfred Kunze, and banker Heinz Sernetz. As of April 2022, the owners of the company were Austrian citizens Günter Maier, Johannes Klezl-Norberg, Andreas Sernetz, and Irish citizen Gillen Philip Andrew. As of 2015, the company's supervisory board was chaired by, the former head of OMV (2002‒2011) and State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance of Austria (1997‒1999).
The structure of Amic Energy Management GmbH includes:
As of 2016, Amic Ukraine purchased fuel from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. According to the company, from 2017‒2018, Amic Ukraine was among the market leaders in diversifying its sources of supply towards European countries and actively worked with the Kremenchuk (Ukraine) and Mozyr (Belarus) oil refineries. Based on the 2021 results, Amic Ukraine was among the top 5 suppliers of Lithuanian petroleum products to Ukraine (according to the A-95 consulting group). As of 2022, the company obtained approximately 30% of its fuel from the Mažeikiai refinery of the Polish group Orlen. Amic Polska exclusively sells Orlen fuel. In March 2023, the general director of Amic Ukraine announced that starting in April 2023, the company plans to source fuel from the Austrian concern OMV.
According to the 2020 results, Amic Ukraine achieved a turnover of ₴7.37 billion (€210.5 million) with a loss of ₴1.7 billion (€48.5 million), ranking 80th among the largest private companies in Ukraine (according to Forbes.ua) and 130th among all top companies in Ukraine (according to Business.Censor.net). Amic Ukraine also ranked 5th among Ukrainian petrol station networks in terms of the amount of taxes paid and 3rd in terms of the calculation of taxes paid per liter of fuel sold (according to the project "Rating. Business in official figures"), and it was the only network in the top 10 with a single legal entity.
In September 2022, Danylo Hetmantsev, the chairman of the Tax Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, highlighted Amic Ukraine among the companies that increased the tax burden during the war. Based on the 2022 results, Amic Ukraine generated a turnover of ₴8.5 billion (€214.5 million) but incurred a loss of ₴3.5 billion (€88.3 million), placing it in 129th position among the largest companies in Ukraine (according to Business.Censor.net). Based on research from the energy publication Enkorr, in 2023, Amic Energy ranked third among Ukrainian fuel station networks in the transparency of personal income tax (PIT) payments and was in the top 5 for the tax burden per liter of fuel.
Following the announcement of the agreement to sell Lukoil-Ukraine CFI to Amic Energy in 2014, some commentators suggested that the real owner of the network in fact remained Lukoil, which was doing so to protect its Ukrainian assets from possible sanctions. The media also drew attention to the fact that the Amic Energy company was only registered in Austria in 2013 and that Amic Energy's authorized capital at the time of its foundation was only €35,000, which journalists believed could indicate that it was a shell company. In response to these allegations, Günter Maier, CEO of Amic Energy, stated at a press conference in Kyiv in September 2014 that the purchase was not fictitious and was not being carried out in the interests of Lukoil or Lukoil shareholders: "I can confirm that the assets are being acquired only in the interests of three Amic shareholders and at their own expense."
Similarly, following Amic Energy's 2016 acquisition of the Lukoil petrol station network in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, the Polish newspaper Puls Biznesu claimed that "the same Lukoil is hiding under the new brand, which thus wants to circumvent the boycott of European consumers who do not want to buy petrol from the Russians". In February 2022, Amic Polska declared that its "network of 116 Polish Amic Energy petrol stations is not linked by capital to the Lukoil company or other business organizations of the Russian Federation". In response to similar concerns in Lithuania, in March 2016 UAB Amic Lietuva submitted the conclusion by the Republic of Lithuania's Commission for assessment of conformity of potential participants to national security interests, which certified that the agreement between Amic Energy and Lukoil is in the interest of Lithuania's national security.
In August 2022, the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine (ESBU) announced the initiation of the seizure of 308 assets of the Amic Ukraine CFI network, totaling over ₴50 million (€1.3 million) in corporate rights. In particular, the ESBU accused the company of tax evasion and maintaining links with Russia. Amic Energy responded by calling both accusations "unfounded and baseless" and claimed that ESBU's actions were evidence of "deliberate illegal pressure on a foreign investor". Günter Maier, the ultimate beneficial owner and managing director of Amic Energy, denied all allegations against the company at a press conference in Kyiv in September 2022. He announced that Amic Ukraine had appealed to the Court of Appeal to overturn the decision on the seizure of assets in Ukraine and would defend its rights at the national level and turn to international institutions if necessary. The Austrian Ambassador to Ukraine, Arad Benkö, called on the Ukrainian authorities to take proportionate measures that do not hinder business as long as no guilt is proven and stated that the Austrian embassy would closely follow the investigation. Despite the investigation, in February 2023, Amic Ukraine CFI won the ESBU's tenders for the supply of diesel fuel and motor gasoline, resulting in corresponding contracts being signed and fulfilled between Amic Ukraine and the ESBU. In May 2023, the preliminary report of the temporary investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament), following the review of a number of complaints, including from Amic Ukraine, stated possible violations by ESBU, including violation of the presumption of innocence in public comments.
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