Petrol Holding and LUKoil Bulgaria, the nation's biggest fuel traders, fell out on Monday after the former circulated a statement accusing the latter of discontinuing all fuel supplies as of last Friday. LUKoil Bulgaria, an entity connected to Bourgas-based refinery LUKoil Neftochim, countered with a press release saying that the problem stems from outstanding obligations. In early December 2004, Petrol Holding was in talks to sell to LUKoil Bulgaria a portion or the whole of its majority stake in fuel retailer Petrol AD in a deal that was expected to reshape the Bulgarian car fuel market. Petrol Holding said yesterday that the pause in the supply of petrol and other products contradicts good business ethics. The company accused LUKoil of using the adverse weather conditions to up the ante and said it had not been notified about the reasons for the suspended supplies. For its part, LUKoil Bulgaria said the supplies were interrupted in response to the rising amount of outstanding payments from Petrol Holding, which now stands at 35 mln levs. Petrol Holding definitely has no outstanding payments to LUKoil Bulgaria, Dnevnik was told by Orlin Todorov, executive director of the holding company and financial director of the fuel retailer. Other sources from Petrol Holding confided that a notification was indeed received on Friday, saying supplies will be stopped due to unfulfilled contractual obligations. LUKoil Bulgaria further said that the management of Petrol Holding had repeatedly refused to negotiate the rescheduling of the debt payments. The 450 Petrol fuel outlets have nit experienced any supply problems, the fuel retailer said on Monday. The actions of the LUKoil Bulgaria management could be interpreted as an attempt to influence the ongoing talks for the sale of the Petrol stake, Petrol Holding also said on Monday. LUKoil Bulgaria responded that the talks have been suspended since the beginning of the year.