The  daughter  company  of Ventspils Nafta - Ventspils Nafta Termināls 

handled  more  than  0.4  million  tonnes  of  crude  oil and petroleum

products  in August 2004. This is mainly gas oil - 0.2 million tonnes -

and various grades of motor gasoline - 0.2 million tonnes.



The  results  of  the activities of Ventspils Nafta Termināls have been

affected  by  the  crude  export  tariff significantly raised by Russia

(from  41.6 US$ per tonne to 69.9 US$ per tonne) and as a result due to

previous  forecasts  the total export volume of Russian crude decreased

and  brought  down  first  of  all  the  crude oil export deliveries by

railroad.  Therefore,  while the purchase prices for crude oil remained

high  for  Russian  local  market,  the  owners  of  crude oil were not

exporting but selling it to refineries in Russia.



In its turn the operations of Ventspils Nafta Termināls in transhipping

petroleum  products  in  August  were  affected by traditional seasonal

fluctuations  that happen every summer especially in August when due to

total export volume decrease all volumes transhipped by the terminal go

down also.



Moreover,  because of the market situation some crude oil was delivered

to  Ventspils  Nafta  Termināls  to be stored and not to be immediately

loaded into tankers in order to be shipped to markets and sold.



Since  the beginning of this year Ventspils Nafta Termināls has handled

in  total almost 6.4 million tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products

including  2.7  million  tonnes of gas oil, 1.9 million tonnes of motor

gasoline as well as 1.7 million tonnes of crude oil.