Lukoil back in Petrom race

Russian oil group Lukoil, one of the world’s leading oil corporations, is in talks with one of the investors shortlisted for the privatisation of SNP (National Oil Company) Petrom, Lukoil officials in Romania stated on Wednesday.

“We were contacted by one of the shortlisted companies, which is now in talks with us, over Petrom. Lukoil does not take part in Petrom’s privatisation, we are just in talks with a company that is involved in the privatisation,” said Nicolae Ciornii, general manager of Lukoil Downstream SRL, the local branch of the group on the fuel distribution market. However, Ciornii did not disclose the name of the company Lukoil is in talks with. He did mention though that it was not “a Russian company,” but a competitor “with interests in the region”.

Besides Gazprom, the other companies competing for taking over the largest Romanian company (under a transaction estimated by analysts at more than $1 billion) are OMV (Austria), MOL (Hungary), PKN Orlena (Poland), Hellenic Petroleum (Greece), the Swiss trading company Glencore and the US company Occidental. Sources on the market told Ziarul Financiar the company that had approached the Russians for talks was the Greek oil company Hellenic Petroleum.

On the other hand, Lukoil officials say they are interested in “Petrom’s assets in the processing and distribution field.” They claim not to be interested in the upstream operations (oil and gas drilling and output), which points to other companies, such as OMV (Austria), MOL (Hungary) or Occidental (US).

However, the Romanian authorities are now trying to postpone Petrom’s privatisation, citing issues that need to be solved, among which the problems surrounding the operating fields’ ownership.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro