MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russian oil firm Rosneft has agreed to acquire a 37.5% stake in German refinery PCK Schwedt from Shell, according to Offshore Technology.
The firm has exercised an option to buy the stake, increasing its shareholding in the refinery to 91.67%. The remaining 8.33% interest in the refinery is held by Eni.
The transaction is contingent on government and regulatory approvals.
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said: “Increasing the share of PCK refinery is testament to the strategic importance of the German market for Rosneft.
“PCK is one of the most technologically complex refineries in Germany, with a Nelson index of 9.8. Rosneft plans to strengthen the technological leadership of the refinery, including through the implementation of low-carbon projects, considering the current environmental agenda of the EU.
“The company is already developing projects aimed at the production of cleaner fuels, such as ‘green’ hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel. Work in this direction will continue.”
As MRC wrote before, Shell initially announced a deal to sell its 37.5% non-operated stake in the PCK oil refinery to Alcmene, an Austria-based unit of energy firm Liwathon Group. At that time, Shell said that the other shareholders in the oil refinery, Rosneft and Eni, will have pre-emption rights to acquire Shell’s stake within three months from the signing of the definitive agreement with Alcmene. The sale is a part of Shell’s strategy to cut down its refinery footprint around the world and maintain only core sites integrated with its chemical plants, trading hubs, and marketing businesses.
Located in Schwedt, Brandenburg, the PCK Refinery has a capacity of 11.6 million tonnes per year. It supplies Urals crude through the Druzhba pipeline.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
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