Lukoil's special manager reports a record forecourt day and a 100 million euro July

On 26 August 2026 Evgeni Simeonov, the state-appointed special commercial manager of the Lukoil companies in Bulgaria, gave his first detailed account of the business since his appointment in early June. The headline figures are unusually strong for a company that spent the first half of the year under sanctions pressure and at reduced capacity.

The numbers

• Refinery throughput at Neftohim Burgas rose from low levels in the spring to 527 thousand tonnes in June and 560 thousand tonnes in July.
• July profit exceeded 100 million euro across the Bulgarian companies, the best monthly result in five to six years according to Simeonov, achieved on what he described as minimal retail margins.
• Retail record: on 31 July 2026 the Lukoil station network sold 2.998 million litres of fuel, the highest daily volume in four and a half years.
• Licence: the US derogation for the four Bulgarian Lukoil companies has been extended to 29 October 2026.
• No major overhaul is needed at the refinery before 2028.

Simeonov also addressed the summer price increases directly: the driver, he said, is a global shortage of refined products rather than anything domestic, and the refinery is buying crude on favourable deferred-payment terms and exporting at peak market prices. He warned that losing the derogation would cost around 5,000 jobs, close more than 120 stations and stop the fuel logistics network, a scenario that was also raised in parliament in August.

What this means beyond Lukoil

Two things in this report matter to every other station operator in the country.

The first is 29 October. Every independent network that buys Bulgarian-refined product now has a hard date on which supply terms could change, and a quarter to prepare. Contract diversification is a commercial question, but on the systems side it is worth checking that head office can switch suppliers, price lists and delivery documents per site without a code change.

The second is the record day. Almost 3 million litres in twenty-four hours across one network is a stress test for forecourt software: pump queues, fiscal device throughput, card terminals under load and head office replication all have to hold at once. The August heat and holiday traffic that produced that peak hit smaller networks too. If a station's POS cannot keep selling on its local database when the link to head office drops on its busiest day, that is the day it will find out.

Finally, this is the first peak season with euro-only receipts. Since 9 August the dual display of prices in leva and euro has ended on labels, menus and fiscal receipts, and the National Revenue Agency's summer campaign is checking exactly that. Record volume is no excuse for a wrong receipt.

Sources: Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), 26 August 2026; Eurocom, 26 August 2026; Sega, 7 August 2026.