Rafo: who benefits from the 330m-euro guarantee?

The Romanian Government announced last week that it intended to grant state guarantees worth 330 million euros for the loans that Rafo Onesti refinery could take out in view of modernisation; this is one of the biggest commitments made by the government to the business world lately, after the guarantees offered to Ford and Renault. Whilst the shareholders of the latter two are known, and so is the state of their businesses, Rafo Onesti is controlled by three companies, Calder International, registered in the Netherlands, Petrochemical Holding registered in Austria, Balkan Petroleum in the UK, with unknown shareholders. According to previous information, these companies' shareholders allegedly include Russian businessman Iakov Goldovski, and his business partners. The 330 million-euro investment plan that the state would be willing to guarantee was announced shortly after Petrochemical Holding, one of the major shareholders of the company held by the Russian businessman, paid the 250 million euros that Rafo owed to the Romanian state.