Page 11 - Euroil Week 38 2019

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
Romania’s Rafo refinery goes bankrupt
ROMANIA
The bankruptcy came after repeated attempts to sell the refinery failed.
THE company that operates the Rafo Onesti refinery, one of the biggest in Romania, will be liquidated after the Bacau Court ruled on its bankruptcy on September 19 following a pro- longed insolvency, Economica.net informed.
The bankruptcy came after repeated attempts to sell the refinery failed. The refinery has not operated since 2008.
This summer, Uroco Ltd, a Cyprus offshore company with unknown shareholders, bought a claim of RON305mn (€64mn) against the bank- rupt refinery from the former majority share- holder of the company, Petrochemical Holding. The claim accounts for over 90% of the total debt Rafo owes, and is guaranteed with Rafo’s main assets: installations and equipment on the indus- trial platform. Uroco was seen as a potential buyer for the refinery, but decided against buying it, according to Profit.ro’s information.
The starting price of the direct negotiation for the sale of Rafo was set at $44.6mn, while smaller offers of $29.75mn or more were also accepted.
Aside from Uroco, Rafo refinery was rumoured in August to have been eyed by a Romanian company, Red Circle Investment from Bucharest, which sent a letter of intent in this regard and also purchased a specifica- tion. The company is indirectly controlled by a 54-year-old businessman from Azerbaijan, Yusif Azizov. The businessman is linked by Profit.ro
to Hamza Karimov, the head of the Romanian operations of SOCAR, the state-owned oil com- pany of Azerbaijan.
The company’s latest judicial reorganisation plan expired on August 22. CITR, one of the big- gest insolvency management firms in Romania, was appointed as the company’s liquidator.
“We must be realistic and note that Rafo is a complex niche project, with long-term return of investment and implications in several branches ... What is needed is a large and powerful inves- tor, who can be agile in an uncertain market, most likely an international player,” said Vasile Godinca-Herlea, CEO CITR.
The insolvency house’s representatives say they will try to sell the refinery as a whole and will consider selling parts of it only if they don’t find a buyer for the whole. ™
Equinor, Okea cleared for wells off Norway
NORWAY
Okea plans to drill
its first wells as an operator, while Equinor is appraising a potential site for a carbon storage facility.
NORWAY’S state-owned Equinor and private equity-backed Okea have been cleared by safety regulators to drill wells at two separate projects on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).
Okea has secured approval to sink two wells – its first as an operator – at licences 093 and 093D near to its Draugen oilfield, Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) said on September 20. The DeepSea Nordkapp semi-submersible will start work on the wells in October, Okea said in its own statement. One of them is targeting the Skumnisse prospect, which has a pre-drill esti- mate of 24.3mn barrels.
“Increasing the activity level in the Draugen area is an important part of Okea’s strategy,” CEO Erik Haugane commented.
Okea’s plan is to extend the producing lifespan of the Draugen platform to 2040 by bringing on stream new resources in its vicin- ity, including the Hasselmus gas discovery. Okea assumed operatorship of Draugen and its facili- ties from Royal Dutch Shell a year ago.
The PSA also said it had granted its consent to
Equinor for an exploration well next month that will test a reservoir for potential carbon dioxide storage. The reservoir, near Equinor’s Troll gas field, could play a role in the company’s joint Northern Lights plan with Shell and France’s Total to transport and store carbon in the North Sea.
Equinor’s probe will be completed by the West Hercules semi-submersible at the company’s operated E001 licence. Drilling is scheduled to begin in mid-October, in waters 307 metres deep, and continue for 79 days, the PSA said.
Equinor and its Northern Lights partners signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) earlier this month with seven other European companies on co-operating in the handling of carbon dioxide at third-party premises and its transport to storage sites. They plan to draw up a timeframe for reaching a final investment decision (FID) on a project, expected in 2020, and discuss the scheme with EU and national authorities. ™
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