Saudi Aramco has bought 30% of the stake in the Polish company Lotos Group, a subsidiary of PKN Orlen.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL acquired 400 petrol stations that belonged Lotos.
The sale to Saudi Aramco and MOL comes as part of the Polish company’s plan to create an energy giant in Eastern Europe worth $11 billion.
Saudi Aramco
The European Commission obliged PKN Orlen to find buyers for a 30% stake in an oil refinery, as well as about 400 Lotos fuel stations, as a condition for agreeing to the merger between the two state-run oil refineries in Poland.
Saudi Aramco will acquire the stake offered for sale in the refinery, while MOL will buy fuel stations, according to what was reported by Bloomberg Agency on Sunday.
The agency said the Polish company would announce the deal next week.
For a while, it has been reported that the Saudi and Hungarian companies are among the potential competitors for the deal.
Aramco is the Saudi government-owned energy company, the largest oil producer in the world with more than 10 million barrels in pre-pandemic conditions, and a market capitalization of $1.9 trillion.
The investment comes as part of the Saudi oil giant’s plan to expand its presence in foreign markets, to boost the government’s plans to diversify the kingdom’s economy.
Advanced talks
Last December, Bloomberg revealed that Aramco was in advanced talks to acquire a stake in the refining and chemicals unit of the Indian company, Reliance, in a deal valued at between 20 and 25 billion dollars.
The Saudi government sold 2% of Aramco in the initial public offering in 2019, raising nearly $30 billion.
These deals will help Aramco reach its goal of more than doubling the refining capacity to between 8 million and 10 million barrels of crude per day, compared to 3.6 million barrels per day of energy at the end of 2020. Aramco’s plans also include stakes in other companies outside Kingdom borders.
In a separate context, Aramco set, at the beginning of this month, the official selling price for Arab Light crude to Asia at $2.20 above the Oman/Dubai average for February, which is $1.10 per barrel lower than the January premium.
