OREANDA-NEWS. New owner of the Sochi International Airport Strategy South (OOO Strategiya-Yug), affiliated with Oleg Deripaska, intends to cancel the agreement with ZAO Sochi-avia-invest, the airport's fuel supplier. Observers say that move is natural, since aircraft fuelling accounts of 70 percent of an airport's income. Sochi-avia-invest does not intend to lose its contract early, however. It expires at the end of 2008.

The Sochi Chamber of Commerce and Industry arbitration court considered Strategy South's announcement of annulment of its agreement with Sochi-avia-invest, which is owned by private shareholders in Moscow' Vnukovo Airport. Vitaly Vantsev, deputy general director of OAO Vnukovo Airport told Kommersant that an agreement was reached with the previous administration of Sochi Airport on the rental of the airport's central fuelling system until 2009. The airport, which serves over 1 million people per year, changed hands in November 2006, when Strategy South bought it from the state for 5.5 billion rubles.

Vantsev warned that the conflict could close down the airport in its peak season. “The airport does not have a fuel reservoir,” he explained. “The land on which we built a reservoir at our own expense was acquired by us long ago and the airport has no rights to it. So if they cut off our access to the fuelling system, we won't be able to work, and neither will they”. Vantsev said that Sochi-avia-invest representatives had tried to contact the new airport owner, and even suggested the rental charge be reconsidered, but they received no reply.