Perpignan, 2 April (Argus) — The commercial court of Rouen in France has accepted two of the four bids submitted to it for the purchase of the Petit Couronne refinery. Officials will now meet again on 16 April with representatives of the two groups to move arrangements forward and move towards a buyout of the 146,000 b/d facility that has been under administration since Switzerland-based refiner Petroplus failed in January last year.
The group comprising Libya's Murzuq Oil and Swiss financiers Terre International is one bid that has been approved for further consideration. The other is the bid from Dubai-based investment company NetOil. Both bids were originally declined as incomplete by the Rouen court when first submitted on 2 March. Two other late bids, from Oceanmed Seasky System from Hong Kong and GTSA, a firm from Luxembourg, were both discounted.
The refinery has seen a series of bidders previously fail to meet financial, administrative and legal conditions of purchase set down by the Rouen court. This has resulted in a series of extended deadlines for bid approval, dating back to early December 2012. In February, the court extended the deadline to close the refinery to 16 April and it will now meet the two successful bidders on that date.
Netoil says it wants to redevelop the site of Petit Couronne alongside its partner, South Korea's Hyundai. It says an initial budget of €468mn ($600mn) will be needed to upgrade the facility to allow the refinery to take a wider range of crude feedstock, consequently boosting the site's ability to output a larger variety of finished products. NetOil says Hyundai has agreed to shoulder the cost for the first tranche, but adds that other, unspecified cash injections will be needed to further boost both the scale and product slate of the refinery. The company says it wants to produce gasoline, diesel, heating oil, bitumen and kerosene.
Murzuq Oil and Terre International initially tabled separate bids for Petit Couronne at the start of the year. But when their submissions were turned down by the Rouen court in February the two groups merged efforts to put forward a joint offer. The French minister for industrial regeneration Arnaud Montebourg has also previously stated that the government would be willing to take a stake in the unit if an acceptable buyer was found. “We want to preserve the refining capacity that we have in France, rather than be obliged to end up importing petroleum products. We are available to accompany an investor who presents the right offer to us for examination. Our stake would be in a minority position,” said Montebourg.
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