REFINERY'S PROBLEMS UNLIKELY TO CAUSE ECONOMIC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 VILNIUS 000711 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/NB, EUR/NCE, EB/ESC DOE FOR HARBERT DOC FOR 4231/IEP/EUR/BOHIGIAN NSC FOR GRAHAM, MCKIBBEN AND COEN TREASURY FOR LOWERY, LEE AND COX E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/31/2016 TAGS: ENRG ECON PREL LH RU SUBJECT: REFINERY'S PROBLEMS UNLIKELY TO CAUSE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN LITHUANIA REF: A. VILNIUS 645 AND PREVIOUS ¶B. WARSAW 1336 Classified By: Classified by Economic Officer Scott Woodard for reasons 1.4 b and d ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The problems Lithuania's Mazeikiu Nafta oil refinery (MN) is facing in obtaining crude supplies are unlikely to cause a major economic crisis here, according to several public and private sector officials and analysts. Although the refinery is Lithuania's largest economic entity and accounts for more than a quarter of Lithuania's exports, these officials and analysts told us that the macroeconomic consequences of even a total supply cut off to MN would be ameliorated by Lithuania's low unemployment, taxes that the GOL would continue to collect on imported gasoline, and continued strong, consumption-driven GDP growth. Our interlocutors emphasized that politicians and other non-economists tend to overemphasize MN's importance to Lithuania's economy. Lithuania's political class, however, sees the country's dependence on Russian energy as a major vulnerability, and not just as an economic issue. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- LOOKING AT A WORST-CASE SCENARIO: MAYBE NOT SO BAD -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) We recently spoke individually with several private and public officials to discuss the possible macroeconomic consequences of a total supply cutoff to MN (reftels). These officials included the director of the central bank's Economics Department, the chairman of MN's Board of Directors and former vice-minister in the Ministry of Economy, an advisor to the prime minister on energy matters, and senior analysts/advisors at two of Lithuania's top banks. All gave surprisingly congruous conclusions about the macroeconomic effects of a supply cutoff to MN: this scenario would not cause a crisis for the Lithuanian economy. -------------- HOW BIG IS MN, REALLY? -------------- ¶3. (C) Raimundas Kuodis, Director of the Economics Department in Lithuania's central bank, told us on July 28 that politicians and other non-economists tend to exaggerate MN's importance to Lithuania's economy because they rely on a production- or "turnover"-based calculation to estimate MN's contribution to GDP. This kind of calculation, he said, concludes that MN is responsible for about five percent of Lithuania's GDP. He told us that a value-added approach, on the other hand, leads to the conclusion that MN creates only about one or two percent of Lithuania's GDP. The two bank analysts told us that they estimated that MN contributed three percentage points to Lithuania's GDP. -------------- MN AS A TAX ISSUE -------------- ¶4. (C) All of our interlocutors emphasized that the GOL would not suffer a major loss of tax revenue in the event that MN faced a supply cutoff. They noted that Lithuania would still consume imported gasoline, which would continue to generate excise tax revenue for the GOL. Kuodis noted that many Lithuanians believe MN pays far more taxes than it actually does, because they do not realize that Lithuania's tax laws require MN to collect excise taxes directly from the gas stations it supplies. The end result is that while it appears that MN pays a large amount of taxes, in truth it merely collects revenues for and turns revenues over to the GOL. If MN were unable to supply Lithuania's gas stations, he said, the GOL would simply collect the excise tax on gasoline at a different point in the supply/delivery chain. -------------- EMPLOYMENT EFFECTS -------------- ¶5. (C) Mazeikiu Nafta directly employs more than 3200 people, making it the largest private employer in Lithuania. A VILNIUS 00000711 002 OF 002 supply cutoff could potentially throw many of these individuals out of work. Again, however, our interlocutors were unconvinced that this would cause a major crisis for the Lithuanian economy. They noted that Lithuania's low (and rapidly dropping) unemployment rate (6.4 percent in Q1, down 3.8 percentage points from Q1 2005) has created a labor shortage and argued that MN's highly skilled labor force would have little problem finding new work (in Lithuania or elsewhere in the EU). Any measurable impact would be temporary, and limited to the geographic area around Mazeikai. -------------- INFLATION -------------- ¶6. (C) There was some difference of opinion about the impact this scenario would have on inflation in general and on gasoline prices in Lithuania, specifically. Kuodis, noting that MN supplies gasoline to the Lithuanian market at import parity prices, said that he would not expect the price of gasoline to increase much if Lithuania's gas stations started relying on imported gasoline. The market, he said, is very competitive. One of the bank analysts, however, said that he would expect gasoline prices to rise as much as 20 percent if Lithuania needed to import all of its gasoline. An increase of this magnitude would have multiplier effects throughout the economy, raising production costs and further complicating Lithuanian efforts to qualify for inclusion in the eurozone under the Maastricht criteria. Our interlocutors all agreed, however, that upward pressure on prices is increasing across the whole of the economy for many reasons, and that an increase in gasoline prices would be only one factor among many contributing to increasing inflation. -------------- EXTERNAL SECTOR EFFECTS -------------- ¶7. (C) The loss of output from Lithuania's largest exporter would negatively impact the trade balance and the balance of payments, but not by as much as one might think, according to Kuodis. (Refined oil products have been Lithuania's top export product for several years.) He said that most of the value in refined oil products like gasoline comes from the value of the crude itself, and that the refinery only has a value-added of about 10-15 percent on a product like gasoline. The increase in gasoline imports, he said, would therefore be largely, albeit not completely, offset by the decrease in crude imports -- except for this 10-15 percent, an amount that he said would not constitute a major crisis for Lithuania's economy. (A ten percent decrease in the value of Lithuania's exports of refined oil products would translate into a loss of about 2.7 percent of total exports, or about USD 331 million.) -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (C) There is no doubt that a cutoff of Russian crude to Lithuania would create problems -- both economic and political -- for the GOL. An end of pipeline-supplied crude to MN could harm the country's largest private enterprise, slow growth, exacerbate inflationary pressures, and aggravate the trade deficit. As long as MN retains the ability to supply its refinery via its Baltic Sea terminal at Butinge, however, a Russian supply cut-off would not bring the economy to its knees. ¶9. (C) This dispassionate conclusion by some of Lithuania's leading economists, however, is not shared by Lithuania's political class, who views the country's dependence on Russian energy as a security, rather than an economic, issue. For them, the current supply contretemps evince Lithuania's vulnerability to a powerful neighbor that unabashedly uses energy resources as a weapon to further hegemonic political objectives. KELLY