Preliminary date of selling Austrian company’s assets in Turkey announced
By Nigar Abbasova
European companies do not show any special interest to the purchase of assets of Austrian OMV Company in Turkey, OMV CEO Rainer Seele told Reuters.
He also mentioned that the sale-purchase deal will be completed until 2017.
OMV previously spread the information about the intention to put up its OMV Petrol Ofisi A.S. subsidiary in Turkey for sale as part of its strategy.
The company is planning to focus on growth of its upstream business which covers crude oil and natural gas production and its integrated downstream business which includes oil refining activities, sales and distribution. The company earlier said that the Petrol Ofisi, with its retail station network, does not fit the strategy.
In this regard, the OMV is planning to sell up to 100 percent of assets in OMV Petrol Ofisi A.S which owns one of the largest networks of filling stations in Turkey.
The company operates 1,785 refueling stations throughout Turkey and owns the country’s largest fuel storage and logistics business. The fuel sale by the company amounted to approximately 10 million tons in 2015.
Within the scope of its strategy, OMV sequentially sells its filling station networks located in different countries.
Earlier, head of SOCAR Turkey Enerji Zaur Gahramanov said that SOCAR will start studying the possibility of purchasing the gas filling stations of OMV in Turkey mentioning that the company has a special interest in the assets of OMV. The interest of SOCAR in the assets is also connected with the plans of the company to create a distribution network pegged to the Star Petroleum refinery, which will be the first oil refinery built by the private sector in Turkey.
OMV has not yet provided any information about the state of the assets to the market. The company is expected to provide the information in September, 2016.
OMV will be the second foreign company to sell its fuel distribution business in Turkey following French oil and gas giant Total, which sold its distribution operation and gas stations in Turley to Demirören Group in 2015.
With its headquarters in Vienna OMV is one of Austria’s largest industrial companies.
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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova
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