Serious interest in buying Poland’s Lotos Group has come only from Russian companies, making the sale of the government-owned refiner politically problematic before this autumn’s parliamentary election.

Unofficially, the Russian companies who submitted bids for Lotos before the treasury ministry’s deadline at the end of last month include TNK BP, GazpromNeft and Rosneft, according to Poland’s Parkiet newspaper.

Russian companies have long been interested in Lotos, the country’s second largest refiner – which owns a modern refinery in northern Poland as well as a chain of petrol stations and some oil production on the Baltic Sea – as a way of gaining a foothold in the Polish market.