Russian oil giant Lukoil said on Thursday it is contemplating over divesting assets in Europe, including Bulgarian and Romanian operations, Russian media reported.
Depending on investor interest, the businesses could be sold in one deal, or as separate companies, or could be spun off in a new entity that will be listed on a stock market, Lukoil's president Vagit Alekperov told RBK in an interview.
He explained that these assets have become non-core for the company, which has shifted its focus to exploration and development of oil and gas fields in recent years.
In Romania, Lukoil operates the Petrotel-Lukoil refinery and runs more than 300 filling stations. According to its website, it has invested over $400 million in the country in 18 years, creating more than 3,100 jobs.
Lukoil Romania's assets stood at 1.25 billion lei ($309 million/275 million euro) at end-2015, according to finance ministry data. However, since July last year, Romanian prosecutors seized assets of the company worth up to 2 billion euro on suspicion of money laundering. Lukoil Romania's turnover stood at 5.437 million lei in 2015.
In Bulgaria, the Russian company owns the country's sole oil refinery, Lukoil Neftochim Burgas, and a chain of more than 200 filling stations. Its annual turnover exceeds $3 billion, with annual sales of about 2.5 million tons of petroleum products, most of the exported to ex-Yugoslavia countries, Greece and Turkey.
In May 2015, Alekperov officially opened a $1.5 billion heavy residue processing complex, built on the territory of the refinery in the Black Sea city of Burgas, which has a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes a year.
In 2014, Lukoil sold its filling stations in the Czech Republic (44), Hungary (75), and Slovakia (19) in a bid to optimise its oil products business.
(SEE News)
