Russian oil major Lukoil mulls sale of Bulgarian refinery – report
Russian privately-held oil major Lukoil is considering the sale of refining assets in Europe, including in Bulgaria, Russian business daily RBK reported on June 16, quoting Lukoil chief executive Vagit Alekperov.
“These assets are not strategic for us today, we have focused in recent years mainly on geological prospecting and developing oil and gas fields. This could prompt us to make a cardinal decision about the fate of such assets in the future. It could be a wholesale or piecemeal deal, or we could spin them off,” Alekperov told the newspaper.
Lukoil has already sold some of its downstream assets in Eastern Europe, including petrol station chains in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary in 2014, RBK said.
Lukoil has refineries in Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and the Netherlands.
In Bulgaria, Lukoil Neftochim, as the refinery in the Black Sea port of Bourgas is known, is the only one in the country. Last year, Lukoil completed a $1.5 billion upgrade at the refinery, which was meant to increase its annual capacity and allow it to refine crude oil from Iraq, where Lukoil operates one of the country’s largest oil fields, in addition to Russian crude.
(In addition to Bulgaria’s sole crude oil refinery, Lukoil also operates one of the largest petrol station chains in the country. Photo: sociate/flickr.com)
