March 3, 2012 [OPIS] - Trading company Gunvor is buying Petroplus's refinery in Antwerp, Belgium, the company said yesterday. The transaction is expected to be completed formally within 6 to 8 weeks, with support from the local and Belgium state authorities.
Gunvor intends to restart operations as soon as possible, following the refinery’s closure in early February as a result of Petroplus’s insolvency. The Antwerp refinery has a nameplate capcity of 107,500 b/d, and storage capacity of more than 1.2 million cubic metres.
Petroplus filed for insolvency in late January after lenders called for the immediate repayment of its $1.1 billion revolving credit facility. The Swiss-based refiner had five European refineries with a total capacity of around 670,000 b/d: Coryton (220,000 b/d), Ingolstad (110,000 b/d), Antwerp (107,500 b/d), Cressier (68,000 b/d) and Petit-Couronne (161,800 b/d).
Administrators for the Coryton plant in the UK and Petit-Couronne in France have put off closing by securing short-term crude supply deals. Shell will process crude for six months at the Petroplus Petit-Couronne refinery on the French northern coast for six months. Morgan Stanley, KKR Asset Management and AtlasInvest are to keep the Coryton plant going in the southeast of England.
Several groups have been linked with buying the Petroplus refineries. The Geneva-based Klesch group has interest in the Petit-Couronne plant, and Russia’s Rosneft has been linked with the Ingolstadt plant in Germany.
