May the 25th, 2023 - INA is now officially planning the Zitnjak solar power plant after having gotten the green light from the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development for its construction. 

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, last year, Croatia's well known national oil company INA began the construction of two new solar power plants, which will produce electricity to supply to the public distribution network. On top of that, it's also investing in the construction of solar power plants for its own needs.

As touched on above, INA has just received approval from the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development for it to launch such an investment in the Zagreb area without the need to prepare an environmental impact study, something that is usually required when it comes to such investments.

To speak more specifically, the location of the new Zitnjak solar power plant would be at Ina Maziva. Now approval has been granted, the plans are for the construction of a power plant in which 1270 photovoltaic modules will be installed, and it will produce half a megawatt of electricity, which is enough for all of the current needs of Ina Maziva.

The location of the upcoming Zitnjak power plant and substation is planned in an area where there is currently a grassy area which spans about 28,000 square metres in total, where there are plants for the production and filling of packaging with motor oil, glass cleaners and other liquids, as well as the required office space.

As it is already an industrial zone, the assessment of the competent ministry is that there are will be no negative effects on the surrounding environment. The value of this investment by INA hasn't yet been publicly disclosed, since a public tender is still to follow, on which the start of the investment will entirely depend.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

October 11, 2022 - After the initial set of arrests in the big INA scandal in August, additional arrests happened yesterday, and today USKOK issued a detailed explainer of what exactly the suspects are accused of.

In August, as we already reported, several people were arrested for alleged wrongdoing in gas trading, in which INA oil company was defrauded for almost a billion HRK. Those were Damir Škugor, a high-ranking executive in INA, his father, the owners of the OMS Upravljanje company, Goran Husić and Josip Šurjak, and Marija Ratkić, CEO of the Plinara istočne Slavonije gas company. Yesterday, the CEO of the EVN Croatia Plin company Vlado Mandić and former Škugor's deputy in INA, Stjepan Leko were also arrested.

The investigators from the USKOK office today explained in detail how the scheme was supposed to work.

They established that the 47-year-old, in his capacity as a responsible person of the oil company (this is referring to Škugor), when ensuring the sale of gas to the customer at a preferential price, and at the moment when there was a significant increase in the price of gas on the market, agreed with the 39-year-old (Leko), a 44-year-old as a member and director of a private natural gas trading company (Husić) and a 59-year-old woman as a director of a gas supply company (Ratkić), pre-dated requests for offers and pre-dated offers to buy gas at extremely low prices. That's how they intended to show that such an agreement for the purchase of natural gas at extremely low prices was reached in December 2020. In reality, these deals were made immediately before the first gas delivery in July 2021 with one customer, and in November 2021 with another customer. Thus, they untruthfully presented that the agreement between the trading companies as buyers and the oil company as the seller of natural gas was reached in December 2020, although in reality such an agreement was reached at a time when the prices on the gas market rose so much that they guaranteed a significant profit on the sale of gas at the market price.

A similar scheme allegedly happened between Škugor and Leko from INA and Mandić from EVN Croatia Plin company: they also pre-dated the offers to dates when the natural gas was cheaper than on the actual days when the offers were created and sales executed. That way, it is said, they defrauded INA for almost half a million Euro, and created a situation where further damage would've been done in 2023 and 2024. Also, some of the arrested are accused of perpetrating various forms of money-laundering.

Škugor is still in jail, after his arrest in August, and now the two new suspects in the INA scandal were sent there as well.

September 1, 2022 - Citizens of the Republic of Croatia are not used to a high level of political culture, honesty, and truthfulness. While in the normal world politicians resign even for the smallest offenses or breaches of duty, in Croatia even those who are proven guilty should be forced out of their positions. Political responsibility and self-criticism simply do not exist. As the INA case unfolds, this becomes more and more apparent.

As Index writes, some statements are too much even for Croatia. It is one thing to cover one's ears, remain silent, and not admit responsibility for certain failures, and it is quite another to claim that these failures are proof of the abilities, moral qualities, and work of those who are responsible for them.

Plenković says that he should be congratulated after the theft of the century

This is what Andrej Plenković said at the press conference after the coalition meeting of the ruling parties where the INA case was discussed: "The key message is that the institutions of the Croatian state, rather the government, were the ones who discovered this case of abuse, not the police or the judicial authorities, but the Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering, a department within the Ministry of Finance". He added that the opposition, instead of demanding elections, should - congratulate the government.

But the facts do not support his arrogant statements. Not only did the government not detect the theft of the century, but it also directly facilitated it. This is the real truth, and it is not difficult to prove it, no matter what Plenković arrogantly claims.

Plenković and the HDZ government directly appointed the INA Administration, at which he is now theatrically "furious"

First of all, the Prime Minister, who claims to be furious with the INA Board, should be reminded that he appointed the people who make up the Croatian quota. According to the agreement, Croatia has the right to three members of the INA Management Board, and they are appointed by the government.

In 2020, Plenković, i.e., the government, appointed Croatian members of the Management Board, with whom the same Plenković is now theatrically "furious". On March 31 of that year, a meeting of the Supervisory Board of INA was held, where new members of the company's Management Board were appointed at the proposal of the government, led by Andrej Plenković: Barbara Dorić, Darko Markotić, and Niko Dalić.

They were the replacement of the previous members, who were also appointed by the HDZ government in 2011, and the prime minister and leader of the HDZ at that time was Jadranka Kosor.

If the Administration appointed by Plenković had done its job, there would have been no theft

If the Board had done its job the case wouldn’t exist, and the Board was appointed by Plenković himself. Admittedly, he only replaced the former HDZ members with a new set, except for one man. That is Niko Dalić, who has been on the INA Management Board for more than a decade. Jadranka Kosor appointed him there in 2011.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell,  remember who managed Agrokor during its collapse and who the ringleader was of the Borg group. For her "services", she was awarded the position of president of the Podravka Management Board in February of this year, which was personally advocated by Plenković. She was even at his place for a kind of job interview, which the media and economists interpreted as the prime minister's direct recruitment in a state-owned company.

Niko Dalić from the INA Management Board is, of course, the husband of Martina Dalić, the Minister of Finance in Plenković's government, who was appointed head of Podravka by Plenković and who led, to put it mildly, the dubious "restructuring" of Agrokor. He is much less exposed in the media, but that is why he survived a whole decade on the INA Management Board.

He was the only one who survived Plenković's change of Croatian members. A trustworthy man, one would say. The current government did not only appoint the Management Board of INA, but also appointed HDZ member Damir Mikuljan as president of the Supervisory Board at the end of last year, and Davor Filipović, a man who had previously been spectacularly defeated in the elections for mayor of Zagreb, as a member.

>> Nacional: Plenković personally chose Dalić and her husband, they have a salary of HRK 200,000

HDZ minister was informed that Ina was losing money. He did nothing and could have prevented the theft

In an interview for N1, Damir Vanđelić, the former head of the Supervisory Board of INA, who was replaced by Damir Mikuljan in December 2021, said that he had informed the authorities, including the then HDZ Minister of Economy Tomislav Ćorić, that INA was losing money.

By the way, Damir Mikuljan, who replaced Damir Vanđelić, is the head of something called the Honorable Court of the HDZ. He will probably decide on the party line of the alleged organiser of the theft of the century, Damir Škugor. The arrested Škugor was also the man of honor for HDZ general secretary Krunoslav Katičić.

That Škugor is active in HDZ was revealed through photos of him hugging Plenković himself and the President of the Croatian Parliament, Goran Jandroković, although the government spokesman claimed before the photos were published that the Prime Minister did not know him.

"Last year in May, we reacted to the Supervisory Board and asked for a session because eight people in high positions in INA were dismissed," said Vanđelić. "I put the topic on for the Supervisory Board at that time, that is May 2021, I asked in English what the plan was when eight people were dismissed. I didn't know about Škugor at the time, but something was happening. Eight good people were dismissed then, they were paid severance pay to leave. That's why I asked what the plan was. We did not receive satisfactory answers."

"The answer was that they were improving the organisation," he added. "I didn't get any answer. I got some calls, mocking us from Supervisory Board because we are problematising the topics of staffing and gas business," he said. "Ćorić told me to politicise and do some other business".

HDZ's Čorić responded: "Vanđelic is very creative in presenting alternative facts". After that statement, evidence was published, an e-mail in which Vanđelić stated that he noticed the "leakage of funds from INA" and informed Ćorić about the problem. Vanđelić sent the mail to his colleagues in the Supervisory Board two weeks earlier and then forwarded it to Ćorić, in which he compared the operations of INA and MOL.

>> Published email in which Vanđelić warned Ćorić that Ina was losing a lot of money

Soon after that, he was removed from the head of the Supervisory Board and was replaced by the previously mentioned Damir Mikuljan, head of the Honorable Court of HDZ.

It is not difficult to notice that just last year, while the theft of the century was taking place, HDZ's staffing in INA was going on. It is arrogant and insulting to the intelligence of the citizens that Plenković claims that the government exposed the theft. By all accounts, the government directly set up Škugor and all the others who made a billion kuna disappear right in front of their noses.

>> Tomislav Ćorić could have prevented the theft of the century. Vuković: This is astonishing

Rakar: The theft was discovered by the banks. It is impossible to declare this a discovery of the government

HDZ's responsibility does not end with staffing at INA. The government is, of course, only a branch of HDZ, and HDZ recruits all over the country.

"I don't see how it is possible to declare the fact that the banks discovered a suspicious payment to the account of a natural person (in no less than a nine-digit amount in kuna) a victory or a great discovery when that same money was created by manipulation and de facto theft from an extremely organised company traded on the stock exchange in which the Republic of Croatia possesses almost 50 percent of the ownership, the president and several members of the Supervisory Board and several members of the company's Management Board. In addition, the entire operation took place through another company, which is owned by a utility company owned by the county, and CroPlin (which is 100% owned by the same INA)", Marko Rakar from the Association of Authorized Fraud Investigators told Index.

"This is proof that the mechanisms of management, control, and supervision in a whole series of companies, but also the state and counties, have completely failed", he concluded.

One of the channels through which money was extracted from INA is The Gas Company of Eastern Slavonia, headed by Marija Ratkić, also a member of HDZ. She defended herself before USKOK that she was only carrying out the orders of her party colleague Damir Škugor.

The Gas Plant Eastern Slavonia is owned by the Vukovar-Srijem County, whose prefect is Damir Dekanić. You guessed it, he is also an HDZ member. He has been a member since 1990 and since 2020 the vice president of the party in Vukovar-Srijem County. You don't need to guess a lot to conclude which party is recruiting in Plinara of Eastern Slavonia.

>> Gas plant revenues from the theft of the century jumped sharply last year. No one found this strange

Fina praised the company through which the theft from INA happened. And Fina, of course, is managed by HDZ

The ones who reported the suspicious events that led to the exposure of the theft of the century in Croatia are - private banks. And in addition to the internal controls of INA and Gas Plant Eastern Slavonia at least two state institutions, Fina and the Tax Administration, also failed.

The first one had all the information related to the company OMS-Upravljanje d.o.o., through which money was primarily extracted from INA. "The small and micro-entrepreneurs with the highest profit for the period in 2021 were: CENTRICE ZAGREB d.o.o., HT HOLDING d.o.o. and SUPERNOVA BUZIN d.o.o. (small) and CENTAR BUNDEK d.o.o. in bankruptcy, BELVEDERE d.d. in bankruptcy and OMS-UPRALJANJE d.o.o. (micro)", announced Fina in a press release just two months ago.

According to information from Fina, OMS-Upravljanje is in third place among the micro-entrepreneurs with the highest profit. Their profit was HRK 117 million 277 thousand. In 2021, OMS-Upravljanje had a higher profit than all those who were on the list of the top 5 small entrepreneurs.

The fact that a micro-company with one employee founded in 2019 had a higher profit than most medium-sized entrepreneurs, which have from 50 to 250 employees, should have immediately set off an alarm in Fina. But nobody reacted, and by chance or not, the head of Fina is another HDZ member, Dražen Čović.

>> The key company from the INA theft was on Fina's top list. Nobody even blinked

Plenković insults the intelligence of citizens

Nothing was suspicious, and no one knew anything. And many not only could but had to know. They get paid to do it. Internal control and management of INA, external auditors of INA, internal control and external auditors of Gas Plant Eastern Slavonia, FINA, Tax Administration, and many others.

The impression is that many people knew, or at least more than have been arrested (so far). HDZ appears in one way or another connected with the name of everyone involved with this theft of the century, whether it was a person directly involved or someone who should have reacted to obvious signs that something strange was going on.

If Plenković had just said today that HDZ and the government have nothing to do with what is happening around INA, it would be a blatant lie. Claiming that the HDZ government is responsible for uncovering the looting is a step beyond lying, making fools of the citizens of the Republic of Croatia.

The arrogance of that statement alone is enough for resignation, and as it has been proven that HDZ and Plenković directly staffed INA while the theft of the century was taking place, the resignation should be insisted on because of the direct responsibility for the disappearance of billions of kuna.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Politics section.

ZAGREB, 29 March 2022 - INA has begun measuring wind speeds at two offshore gas platforms in the Adriatic Sea in an effort to explore the potential of a possible offshore wind park, the energy company reported on Tuesday.

This is the first offshore project to measure wind speeds in Croatia and gauging will last for at least 12 months.

INA would then be in a position to estimate the full potential of wind and its feasibility taking into consideration industrial standards and then assess whether to invest in this type of renewable source for electricity generation, INA underscored.

The company has already begun construction on solar power plants in Molve and in Sisak which will annually produce 16,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity. This is sufficient to cater for the average consumption of 4,800 households in Croatia. The first electricity from these power plants should be released into the electricity grid in 2023.

"With this project, INA is taking a step towards new business based on renewable energy sources and mobility as well as other activities in which we see a synergy with our current business activities. We are interested in feasible opportunities that can upgrade our existing value chain and which are at the same time adapted to Croatia's and the European Union's Green Deal," the director of INA's Ventures & Innovations Ante Crljenko said as carried in a press release.

The project has been awarded to the Megajoule Adria company and the company's director Leo Jerkić said that the entire installation will be very demanding as this is the first of its kind in the region.

INA underscored that it is strongly turning towards green technology in line with the company's development guidelines and the MOL Group's "Shape Tomorrow 2030+" strategy.

Hungary's MOL Group, which holds over 49% interest in INA, has said that it will allocate 50% of its total investments in sustainable projects by 2030, INA said in the press release.

ZAGREB, 3 March 2022 - INA, the leading Croatian oil, and gas, has been given "an exploration license for the East Bir El-Nus concession (Block WD-8), located in Egypt’s Western Desert," the leading Croatian oil and gas group stated on Thursday.

"This is a follow-up to INA's activities on this key foreign market for the company in terms of oil and gas exploration and production," the press release says.

"INA enters the new exploration license as a 50% partner, while the remaining 50% is held by Energean, which will also be the operator. In the coming period, Energean and INA will finalize the license agreement with the Egyptian Government and the Egyptian national oil company, and before it enters into force it will have to be confirmed by the Egyptian Parliament."

In their bid, INA and Energean committed to conducting a 180-square-kilometer 2D seismic survey and a 200-square-kilometer 3D seismic survey, followed by at least two exploration wells.

For more, check out our business section.

January 20th, 2022 - INA plans to implement contactless pay at their petrol pumps, but the terminals installed in the pilot phase haven’t had a trial run in over a year

Croatia’s leading oil company INA has been testing contactless payment at petrol pumps for a year and a half, reports Jutarnji list/Dora Koretić.

Petrol pumps at INA’s petrol station in Resnik were fitted with contactless payment terminals in 2020, aiming to limit close contact during the pandemic by allowing customers to pay for fuel without having to enter the store.

The terminals were recently removed because the company decided to test ‘other technical solutions available on the market’. This wouldn’t be an issue in itself, but as it turns out, the contactless payment terminals at the Resnik station were never made operational, making it unclear what exactly INA has been testing over the last 18 months.

The company stated this was a pilot project aiming to gather user feedback on contactless payment at petrol pumps using bank cards or fleet cards.

‘Customer satisfaction is our no.1 priority, which is why the company continuously works on developing new solutions to enable customers to purchase products and services at our stations in the simplest way possible. [The project] is still in the pilot phase, and for the sake of establishing the best technical solution the terminals have been removed temporarily. Installation of new ones is underway so that we could carry out an analysis of other technical solutions that are available on the market’, stated INA.

Despite how long it’s been since the pilot project was launched and the fact that the terminals were never put into use, INA state they consider digitalization a critical factor of business, especially in a time where preventative measures, such as maintaining physical distance and limiting the number of customers in stores, are of great importance.

The company has so far introduced contactless payment at the pump through the INA PAY mobile app, which is currently only available for corporate users holding an INA card. Coffee machines at INA  petrol stations are also equipped with contactless terminals. However, it still hasn’t been determined when mobile payment or other forms of contactless pay at the pump will become an option for private customers.

In contrast, many petrol stations in Slovenia offer customers the option to pay contactless at the pump. This mode of payment gained in popularity after the Slovenian government made Covid certificates a prerequisite for in-store payment at service stations, but not for contactless payment at petrol pumps.

ZAGREB, 30 Dec 2021 - The government decided on Thursday to suspend the buyback of INA from MOL due to new legal circumstances stemming from the Supreme Court's final ruling against former PM Ivo Sanader, who was found guilty of receiving bribes from MOL executive Zsolt Hernadi.

Sanader was given six years and Hernadi, who is beyond the reach of Croatia's authorities, was given two years in this graft case.

The Andrej Plenković government also decided to launch a review of the 2016 ruling of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) under which Croatia lost an arbitration case it brought against MOL before that court based in Geneva.

The government authorized the Economy Ministry to request the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland to review the UNCITRAL decision so as to declare an amended contract on the relationship between the shareholders in INA and a contract on the gas business, both signed in 2009, null and void.

The ministry is also authorized to continue activities concerning Croatia's participation in the arbitration process which the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL initiated in 2013 before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an arbitration institution in Washington.

In February 2017, Croatia filed a lawsuit with the Swiss Federal Court requesting the annulment of the arbitration ruling in the case Croatia v. MOL that was conducted in line with UNCITRAL arbitration rules. However, the Swiss court rejected Croatia's request in October that year.

In late December 2016, UNCITRAL overruled Croatia's request to nullify amendments to a 2009 contract on management rights in the oil and gas company INA and a gas business master agreement, finding that evidence was not sufficient to prove that the amendments were the result of corruption activities.

This prompted Prime Minister Andrej Plenković to state on 24 December 2016 that his government had decided to regain ownership of INA by buying the entire stake held by MOL.

In August 2019 the government chose the Anglo-French investment bank Lazard as a consultant for its plans for the buyback. Lazard presented a preliminary report on due diligence in June 2020 and a final report in September 2020, giving an estimate of INA's value.

MOL is the single largest shareholder in INA, holding 49.1% of the stock (4,908,207 shares), while the Croatian government holds 4,483,552 shares or 44.8%. Private and institutional shareholders hold 608,241 shares or 6.1%.

For more on politics, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 30 Dec 2021 - The government is pausing the buyback of the Hungarian energy group MOL's stake in the INA oil and gas company because of new legal circumstances arising from a Supreme Court verdict and is launching a review of the shareholders' agreement and the gas business agreement, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday.

Speaking at the start of the cabinet meeting, Plenković said that proceedings against the first amendment to the INA shareholders' agreement and the gas business agreement were being launched because the government believes that in light of the Supreme Court's final judgment the agreements cannot be sustained.

In late October, the Supreme Court upheld the trial court verdict sentencing former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to six years in prison for taking a bribe from MOL CEO Zsolt Hernadi. Hernadi, who remains beyond the reach of the Croatian authorities, was given two years in prison.

Plenković said that the government's decision was based on legal opinions, adding that the government had consulted the State Attorney's Office, the International Law Department at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Law, and the government's legal representatives in proceedings with MOL.

"In these changed circumstances, we consider it opportune to pause the process of the possible buyback of shares which MOL holds in INA until this new legal circumstance has been resolved," the prime minister said.

The Croatian government and MOL signed the first amendments to the INA shareholders' agreement and the gas business agreement on 30 January 2009.

Under the amendments, the number of Supervisory Board members was increased from seven to nine, with five seats allocated to MOL, three to the government, and one to the employees. The Supervisory Board chair is designated by the government.

The Management Board has six members, of whom three represent the government and three MOL, while MOL nominates the Management Board chair, who has a casting vote.

The master gas business agreement provided for the sale of the Okoli gas storage facility and the gas trading company to the government. In December 2009, the government and MOL signed the first annex to the gas business agreement under which the government's obligation to buy the gas business was delayed until 1 December 2010.

For more on politics, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 16 Oct, 2021 - Greenpeace activists on Saturday held a news conference in the northern Adriatic port of Rijeka, warning that INA's gas platform Ivana D, which sank into the sea a year ago, was still in the Adriatic.

The activists warned that the gas infrastructure was obsolete and called on the Croatian authorities to deal with the problem.

The Greenpeace boat Arctic Sunrise is visiting Rijeka again after eight years and Greenpeace activists will be collecting this weekend signatures for a petition by the European Citizens' Initiative seeking an EU ban on fossil fuel advertisements and related sponsorships.

Along with Greenpeace, the campaign was launched by more than 20 European organisations and its aim is to collect one million signatures in a year, after which the European Commission has the duty to respond and consider implementing the campaign demands into EU laws, it was said at the news conference, held on the Arctic Sunrise.

Greenpeace programme director Petra Andrić spoke about the danger of methane leaks during fossil gas extraction.

She said that the fossil industry had been reassuring the public for decades that its plants were safe but that accidents happened globally during fossil fuel extraction, transport and storage, with frequent methane leaks from gas units.

One such accident happened last year in the northern Adriatic, where the gas platform Ivana D disappeared, with the relevant authorities not knowing for days where it was and what had happened, Andrić said, noting that the gas platform was still lying on the seabed.

Explaining why they were so concerned about natural gas, Andrić said that what was called natural gas should be called fossil gas because it was a fossil fuel.

It is perceived as a transition, less harmful fossil fuel, she said, adding that the main component of fossil fuel was methane, a greenhouse gas with a huge potential for global warming if it leaked directly into the atmosphere.

Greenpeace wants the Croatian government and INA to check all off-shore gas platforms for possible methane leaks and to inform the public of their findings, she said, noting that the government should ban investments in fossil infrastructure in the Adriatic and turn to renewable energy sources, primarily solar energy.

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ZAGREB, 15 Sept, 2021 - The INA oil company said on Wednesday it was considering issuing bonds on the domestic capital market in the nominal amount of HRK 2 billion maximum, with one-off principal maturity after five years maximum.

The Board today decided to issue the bonds and list them on the Zagreb Stock Exchange.

The issuing and the listing will be done provided that all regulatory permits are obtained in line with regulations and subject to acceptable market conditions.

INA hired Erste & Steiermärkische Bank, Privredna Banka Zagreb and Raiffeisenbank Austria as the issue agent.

For more about business in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.