Bulgaria: Lukoil & Petrol Reconcile Differences
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Monday, 28 April 2008 |
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LUKOIL and Petrol of Bulgaris have reconciled a long-running dispute.
The agreement is likely to trigger more changes in the Bulgarian
petrol retail market.
Under last weeks agreement, cleared on April 24 by Bulgaria’s anti-trust
authority CPC, the two companies agreed to the withdrawal of all
lawsuits against each other and to the sale of 75 service stations and a
fuel depot in Sofia’s Iliantsi neighbourhood of Petrol to LUKoil.
The value of the transaction is 463.5 million leva, 305 million leva
of which are payable for the service stations and the remainder for the
fuel depot.
LUKOIL will pay in two instalments. The first is due by the middle of the year and the rest by the year’s end.
The deal is costly to Petrol because half the stations are among the
company’s most profitable. They account for 238 million leva of
Petrol’s annual sales or 30 per cent of annual revenues, company
representatives told local media.
According to experts, the deal will even the market shares of the
two companies to 18 per cent. To date Petrol was the largest fuel
retailer with a 20 per cent market share, ahead of Shell and OMV with a
market share of, respectively, 16 per cent.
PetrolWorld 260408
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