Lukoil selling 240 filling stations in Ukraine to Austrian firm
MOSCOW. July 31 (Interfax) -Lukoil and Austria's AMIC Energy Management GmbH (AMIC) have reached an agreement in principle to sell 100% of LUKOIL-Ukraine CFI, which owns around 240 filling stations and six petroleum tank farms in Ukraine, Lukoil said in a press release.
Negotiations were initiated by the Austrian party who expressed their interest in acquiring the assets, Lukoil said. Currently, the parties are interacting as part of the due diligence of assets and are preparing to sign a sale-and-purchase contract.
"The sale of the filling-station network and petroleum tank farms in Ukraine to AMIC will help LUKOIL optimize its asset structure and distribution-network management system in Eastern Europe, to which we attach great importance seeking to enhance the efficiency of our business in terms of petroleum-product sales," said Vadim Vorobyov, Lukoil Vice President.
"Given that LUKOIL-Ukraine is one of the top five leaders of the Ukrainian fuel market in terms of the number of filling stations and the volume of retail petroleum-product sales, its purchase is a strategically important step to improve AMIC's investment portfolio in Central and Eastern Europe. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our partners for their willingness to positively consider our offer to purchase the retail network," said Gunter Maier, Managing Director of AMIC Energy Management GmbH.
The LUKOIL-Ukraine joint venture was formed in November 1999 for the creation of a retail network for the sale of oil products in the country.
LUKOIL-Ukraine had planned to invest not less than $141 million in the development of its assets in Ukraine in 2014-2019.
At the beginning of this week it became known that the Right Sector demanded 3 tonnes of fuel per month for the Ukrainian army from the Lukoil stations in Ivano-Frankivsk. "The SMM [OSCE Special Monitoring Mission] followed up on media reports that representatives of the Right Sector were blockading Lukoil gas stations in Ivano-Frankivsk demanding that the Russian company allocated 2.5-3 tonnes of fuel per month - about one hundred liters per day - for the army and constriction office," the OSCE mission in Ukraine said.
Lukoil's LLC Karpatnaftokhim, a producer of ethylene, polyethylene, vinyl chloride, sodium hydrate, chloride and suspended PVC, is also located in Kalush in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. The factory was shut down in September 2012 due to the unfavorable situation on the petrochemicals market and until now has not been put back into operation, with exception of a brief resumption of PVC production.