MOSCOW (MRC) -- Italian oil and gas group Eni has put on hold the sale of Australian gas assets it values at around $1 billion after they failed to attract satisfactory bids, two sources close to the matter said, confirming a press report, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
One of the sources said offers had been well below what Eni had expected. A spokesman for Eni said the group would not comment on a press report.
"However, Eni confirms its strategy of rationalisation of its production portfolio, which will only become effective when conditions are met for the assets concerned to be adequately valued," he said. News that the sale process had been halted was reported first by Italian daily MF on Tuesday.
The disposal of its Australian gas assets is part of Eni's plans to sell non-core assets to raise cash after the global downturn triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, and its drive to focus on cleaner fuels.
Eni and its adviser Citi had expected binding bids for the gas assets in Australia by the end of November, two sources had said.
As MRC informed earlier, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co, the UAE's biggest energy producer, has awarded Italy's Eni and Thailand's PTTEP an exploration concession amid plans to boost oil production capacity by 25% to 5 million b/d by 2030. The Eni-PTTEP consortium won rights to look for oil and gas in Offshore Block 3, the second award in ADNOC's second bidding round, the company said in a statement Dec. 21. Occidental Petroleum won the first concession in the second bidding round, which was launched in 2019.
As MRC reported previously, in early May, 2020, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) began a gradual restart of its Ruwais oil refinery complex after a scheduled maintenance shutdown. The Ruwais complex, which has capacity of 835,000 barrels per day, was shut down early this year, the ADNOC spokesman said.
And in late July 2019, ADNOC said its Ruwais refinery west cracker was offline for maintenance.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.