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New players expected to storm Romania's oil market in 2008

New players are expected to take Romania's oil market by storm in 2008.

According to sources with Romania's oil market quoted by daily Business Standard on Tuesday, this year might witness the sale of or at least the beginning of sale talks for Rafo Onesti refinery, currently owned by CALDER-A International BV, which is seemingly held by Russian investors. The majority shareholder in Rafo has recently decided to open the refinery for 24 months as from February 20, 2008. The Rafo management has also called on the shareholders scheduled to meet on March 31, 2008 to approve a staff restructuring programme and the conservation of the refinery's technological installations for two years. Sources quoted by the same paper say halting Rafo means in fact getting it ready for sale. A change of ownership over Rafo might energise the Romanian oil market, says the paper. In late 2007, the Romanian tax authorities announced that Rafo Onesti had paid off its outstanding public debts of 234 million euros. According to the sources quoted above, the potential buyers for Rafo, which in 2007 processed some 2.6 million tonnes of petroleum, are the national oil corporation of Azerbaijan, Socar, and Hungarian MOL, which has been looking seeking an opportunity on the local market for years to buy a refinery facility. Socar is currently negotiating with local Oil Terminal operator over a contract for the domestic delivery of 56 million tonnes of crude oil, a quantity that is alomst equal to the annual output of Petrom, the only company to hold crude reserves. Sources with Oil Terminal confirmed the Socar's intentions to Business Standard. The local fuel distribution market might also witness newcomers and further growth of the exiting players. As of end-2007, there were some 2,000 petrol stations in Romania, 400 of which were individually owned, and the remaining were under the control of the large local oil players. An important player might emerge from Rafo again. It is about Grizzly Petrol RSL, an Austrian European trader of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which in 2007 took under lease 33 operating petrol stations from Rafo. Grizzly Petrol SRL Marketing Manager Andrea Windhab told Business Standard that the company wants to take up to 200 petrol stations under lease. In the meanwhile, established local players - Petrom -OMV Austria, Rompetrol - KazMunaiGas Kazakhstan, MOL Hungary and Agip-Eni Italy are carrying out their own business development plans, one more ambitious than the other, the paper notes. Most of these companies are eyeing increases in their market shares, which should mean that competition would toughen. The main local oil players are Petrom-OMV, LukOil and Rompetrol. The business turnover of the local players might exceed the 12-billion-euro mark. Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: players market petrol local which might business romanias euro

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