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Gazprom Neft may become the owner of the largest oil refinerian Poland
Having completed the consolidation of the NIS and Sibir Energy, which ensured a significant (24%) growth in net profit according to the results of nine months, Gazprom Neft has already outlined a new object of foreign expansion. It can be the Polish Grupa Lotos, which controls the four oil refineries: including Yaslo, Glimar, Chekhovitsa-player and the largest Gdan refinery in the country, as well as the extractive company PetroBaltic. According to experts, such an acquisition will complete the creation of a new oil supply route to Europe bypassing transit countries.In the course of the negotiations of the Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and his Polish colleague Voldemar Plyan, the curator of the domestic fuel and energy complex, which ended last week, noted that Russian companies can take part in the privatization of Grupa Lotos.
The purchase of processing capacities and sales networks in Poland could become a final stage in the formation of a new European oil artery. Recall that at the end of October, Transneft reported on the completion of the construction of the BTS-2 pipeline, through which it is planned to redirect the supply of Russian oil from the Belarusian to the Baltic direction. The raw materials will be delivered to the port of Ust-Luga near St. Petersburg. From there, black gold can go with tankers, in particular, to the largest Polish port of Gdansk. Thus, transit risks are eliminated. Buying by the Russian company of processing plants and sales assets in Poland will provide stable access to the European market.
A specific Lotos buyer was also found. According to Anatoly Cherner, Deputy General Director for Logistics, Processing and Sales of Gazprom Neft, the company is interesting to the Polish market, and it has sufficient raw material resources to load the refinery in Grupa Lotos. However, Mr. Cherner agreed that no specific proposals to the Polish side have yet been made.
LotoS sale is only part of a large -scale privatization program, within the framework of which the Polish government expects to receive about $ 19 billion. The state share in the oil company is 53.2% estimated at 735 million dollars. A low starting price for the opportunity to obtain control over a quarter of oil retail in Poland has already provided interest in Lotos foreign companies. In addition to Gazprom Neft, according to Bloomberg, potential buyers are Rosneft, TNK-BP, as well as the Libyan Tamoil. Earlier, the largest private Russian NK - Lukoil also showed interest in Lotos. The deadline for filing applications for the competition expires on February 4, 2011. Until that time, experts do not exclude the possibility of creating consortiums of companies to participate in it. The winner, most likely, will have to take the payment of $ 1.75 billion, which Lotos occupied to increase the processing capacities by 75% to 10.5 million tons per year.
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- // 08.11.2010
- // 08.11.2010
- // 08.11.2010
- // 08.11.2010
