Occidental, OMV most likely to submit final bids for Petrom

Occidental, OMV, MOL and PKN are the oil groups credited with the most chances to remain in the race for the acquisition of the main stake in the National Oil Company (SNP) Petrom, after the deadline for bid submitting expires. The deadline was yesterday, April 15, 16.00h, whereas the envelopes containing the bids will be opened and validated today. The names of the bidders will be officially released today, as well.

The bids were submitted yesterday and the process was surrounded by secrecy, as the Ministry of Economy (Petrom’s main shareholder) had said last week that the deadline had been set for April 16.

The final bids account for a key stage in the privatisation process, as they express the bidders’ firm commitment to negotiate the acquisition of SNP Petrom with the Romanian State.

The Ministry made no official announcements yesterday about the final bids, but sources within the institution told Ziarul Financiar that there would be three or four bids.

American group Occidental and Austrian company OMV were deemed as sure bidders, whereas the intentions of MOL and PKN had not been revealed by 16.00h yesterday.

Neither Ministry of Economy officials nor the representatives of the companies involved in the privatisation process would comment on the bid-submitting information.

Final bids were submitted yesterday, following a seven-day postponement (the deadline had initially been set for April 7), although, according to Ministry sources, most of the potential bidders had requested another delay.

Although they had been on the list of the seven companies having submitted non-binding bids early this year, Russian giant Gazprom and international trading company Glencore dropped plans to submit final bids, according to sources close to the two companies. Moreover, Hellenic Petroleum was not deemed likely to submit an offer, considering the company’s small size and the political uncertainties affecting Greece, where general elections were held yesterday. Hellenic Petroleum is controlled by the Greek state.

Glencore, which signed up for the privatisation of Petrom hoping to find a strategic investor (oil group) in order to make up a consortium for the acquisition, did not even enter the data room that was made available to the seven companies that submitted non-binding bids, according to sources from the Ministry of Industries. The main reason was the failure to actually form a consortium.

Although Gazprom did not officially quit the race, it had already decided for several weeks to let Petrom go and focus on the privatisation of the Romanian gas distribution companies (Distrigaz) instead.

In the past few months, the market has been ripe with rumours according to which Hellenic Petroleum will team up with Russian giant Lukoil in a consortium set to buy Petrom. However, the rumours were not confirmed by officials of the two companies.

The privatisation of Petrom will be done by the direct acquisition of 33.34% in the company, combined with a capital increase that will raise the winner’s stake to 51%.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro ; adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro