Following months of negotiations, Petrol Ofisi’s new owner is finally announced. As mentioned in recent weeks, Saudi Arabia’s public-owned energy company Saudi Aramco, and Azerbaijani SOCAR were heading in the competition for the sale of Petrol Ofisi; but the winner is the Dutch Vitol Group. Austria-based energy company OMV has announced that it has decided to sell its 100 percent subsidiary Petrol Ofisi to the Dutch Vitol Group for € 1 billion 368 million. According to the statement, the sale and transfer transactions are planned to be completed in the third quarter of this year. OMV’s net income from the sales will be € 1.1 billion with exchange rate effect.
‘We are dedicated to maintain this performance’
As indicated in the official website of the company about the acquisition of Petrol Ofisi, Ian Taylor, President and CEO of Vitol, stated that they are greatly looking forward to working with the team of Petrol Ofisi, Austrian OMV’s 100 percent subsidiary.
Underlining that Petrol Ofisi is one of the leading brands in Turkey, which benefitted from OMV’s focus on high standards of health, safety, security and environment, Taylor said: “We are committed to maintaining this excellent track record. Turkey has strong economic performance and growing demand for energy products. We have made a strong investment in a growing market with Petrol Ofisi.” ‘It was the right and necessary step’ Rainer Seele, OMV Chief Executive Officer expressed that Petrol Ofisi was put up for sale as it could not be integrated into the value chain of the company; therefore, the decision to sell the company was the right and necessary step in the course of implementing the corporate strategy. “In light of the challenging environment, I am pleased that we successfully concluded the negotiations,” said Seele. Daily trade volume: 6 million tons Vitol Group has more than 40 offices worldwide and its largest operations are in Geneva, Houston, London and Singapore. The company’s revenue for the year 2014 was $ 270 billion but due to the decline in oil prices it was recorded as $ 168 billion in 2015. Operating in many areas such as refining, trading, storage and power generation, Vitol ships 303 million tons of oil and gas per year, and trades 6 million tons of crude oil and oil products per day. Largest actor of the market According to the Energy Markets Regulation Authority’s (EMRA) Oil Market Report for the year 2015, Petrol Ofisi, which had been put up for sale by OMV last year, holds the largest share in Turkish fuel market by 24 percent. Petrol Ofisi is the second largest private company in Turkey, with more than 1 thousand 700 filling stations, 1 lubricants plant, 10 fuel and 4 LPG terminals, 20 aviation units, and over 1.1 million m3 storage capacity. Will PO regain the power it lost with OMV? OMV paid $ 3 billion in total for the acquisition of Petrol Ofisi, which had 3 thousand 500 stations and 2 lubricant plants in 2006. In 11 years, PO’s network in the market shrank; the number of stations decreased to 1 thousand 709, and lubricant plants to 1. In this way, sales price of Petrol Ofisi declined by half in dollars, and the station network shrank by 50 percent. Petrol Ofisi seems dedicated to reverse the shrinking trend with Austrian OMV to growth with Vitol.
