MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian officials have declared interest in buying half of Croatia’s former state player INA from Hungarian oil & gas group MOL, said Upstreamonline.
The officials expressed Russia’s interest in the stake on the sidelines of a visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian business weekly Figyelo reported, citing unnamed sources.
Neither the Russian nor the Hungarian government made any immediate comment on the rumours. The two leaders signed a bilateral agreement on nuclear development co-operation during their talks last week.
MOL holds a 49.1% stake with management rights in INA, while the Croatian government owns a 44.8% interest. The Hungarian explorer has been locked in a long-running dispute over the stake with the Croatian government, which wants to regain control of the company privatised in 2003.
INA holds exploration and production assets in Croatia along with eight licence interests in Angola and Egypt as well as two blocks under force majeure in Syria.
The Zagreb-headquartered company, which also holds refining, marketing and retail assets, earned revenues of USD3.62 billion in the first nine months of last year. MOL Group is a leading integrated Central and East European oil and gas corporation with an extensive international Upstream and Downstream portfolio.
As MRC wrote before, MOL Nyrt. laid the cornerstone of a butadiene plant in a move that may decrease Hungary's dependency on imports of the chemical. MOL is set to invest 120 million euros (USD162.7 million) in the plant of its petrochemical arm TVK, part of the company's 300-billion-forint (USD1.37 billion) three-year investment scheme.
MRC