FT: MOL acquisition of Petrom, politically unacceptable

The acquisition of SNP Petrom, the largest company on the Romanian market, by Hungarian oil and gas group MOL is expected to be politically unacceptable due to historical tensions between Hungary and Romania, Financial Times comments.

“MOL has bid for SNP Petrom in Romania and Unipetrol in the Czech Republic, both of which are scheduled for privatisation this year. But historical tensions between Hungary and Romania are expected to make a MOL acquisition of Petrom politically unacceptable and Unipetrol is small,” Financial Times said in its yesterday issue.

The Hungarian oil and gas group could this year take a big step toward becoming Central and Eastern Europe’s champion in the downstream oil business, according to some industry analysts.

MOL is looking to take advantage of a decade of modernisation and investments, including the acquisitions of small operators in Slovakia and Croatia.

Counting the Croatian oil group INA – of which MOL now owns 25 percent and is on track to obtaining a majority stake, MOL is now the largest operator in the region. It surpasses both Austria’s OMV and Poland’s PKN Orlen in refining capacity (451,000 barrels per day) and annual retail sales (2.75 million tonnes of petrol and other refined products). The group controls about 1,200 filling stations in eight countries.

Government pricing restrictions on natural gas cost the Hungarian company millions of dollars during the past three years, but under a new, friendlier regulatory regime, the gas businesses have turned profitable and may sell for more than one billion dollars.

The acquisition of 51 percent in Petrom is estimated by international analysts to be worth approximately 1-1.3 billion dollars. The race for Petrom now sees seven contenders left – MOL, OMV, PKN, Hellenic Petroleum (Greece), American Occidental company, Swiss trader Glencore and Russia’s Gazprom. The final bids are expected for early April.

Petrom’s market capitalisation is below 2 billion dollars. MOL’s capitalisation, as well as PKN’s is of approximately 3 billion dollars, while OMV’s reaches 4 billion dollars. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro