Jean Valvis: the Carpathians are for milk what Scotland is for whisky Hungarian oil group MOL has not given up on the Romanian market, after failing to take over Petrom, and will pursue any expansion opportunities.
“We proposed a different transaction structure at Petrom, but the authorities rejected it and chose OMV. We will carefully consider any opportunity that would bring added value to our business, however,” Zsolt Hernadi, MOL chairman, told Ziarul Financiar.
The Hungarian company last summer proposed a stock swap between MOL and Petrom, to be followed by the gradual integration of operations performed by the two entities. MOL”s expansion policy for Romania is linked to potential acquisitions of petrol stations, of a gas producer or even of a refinery, as well as research into certain projects in the petrochemical sector.
“In Romania, we are considering all opportunities emerging on the market. As regards the expansion of our petrol station network, we are not currently in talks to acquire petrol stations, but we are not ruling this out,” said Gyorgy Mosonyi, MOL group CEO.
MOL is highly interested in the acquisition of gas producer Romgaz Medias, which perfectly fits the business structure of the Hungarian group. A possible takeover of Romgaz Medias would mean MOL”s entrance onto the Romanian segment of upstream operations (exploration and production), with the group only having been involved in petrol stations for the last ten years.
“Romgaz”s experience is very precious. We could get Romgaz involved in international projects,” Hernadi added.
The Romanian authorities have recently designated the consortium made up of Credit Suisse First Boston investment bank, The Romanian-American Enterprise Fund and Linklaters law firm as an advisor in the sale of Romgaz Medias. MOL is also likely to show an interest in refineries operating on the Romanian market, which could contribute to the integration of downstream operations (fuel distribution). “In the domain of product distribution, we want to boost our profitability on markets such as Hungary, Slovenia and Romania, at the same time considering new businesses and new opportunities,” Michel Marc Delcommune, group policy manager, explained.
MOL has just finalised the integration of the Shell petrol station network it acquired in two stages.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro