Page 10 - EurOil Week 09 2021

EurOil INVESTMENT EurOil

Prax closes purchase of UK’s

Lindsey oil refinery

UK UK fuel trader Prax Group announced on one of the world’s busiest ports,” Prax said at the
March 1 it had wrapped up the purchase of the time. “The terminal is ideally situated to enable
The selling price has Lindsey oil refinery on England’s east coast from the Prax Group to focus on its strategic plans to
not been disclosed. France’s Total. expand its presence in north-western European
Total agreed to sell the 108,000 barrel per coastal waters.”
day (bpd) plant in July last year, as part of its Prax also said this week it had finalised
broader divestment programme and a shift “an exclusive crude oil and feedstocks supply
away from conventional oil refining. Besides arrangement” with commodities trader Tra-
the refinery itself, the deal covers the Finaline figura, covering “all of its requirements” at the
pipeline linking the plant with the Buncefield Lindsey plant.
fuel terminal, and the Killingholme loading “Trafigura will use its extensive global reach
terminal. It also includes stakes in joint venture in international oil markets to source the optimal
operations Hertfordshire Oil Storage (60%), range of crude oils and feedstocks for the refin-
Associated Petroleum Terminals (50%), Crude ery,” Prax said, noting that other details about the
Oil Terminals (50%), Humber Oil Terminals transaction were confidential.
Trustee (50%) and Warwickshire Oil Storage Kumar added that the arrangement with Tra-
(50%). figura would “provide operational and planning
The selling price has not been disclosed. flexibility, helping [the company] to continue
Prax CEO Sanjeev Kumar said the company to deliver an excellent level of service to our
would seek to integrate the refinery and asso- customers.”
ciated product flows “into the company’s UK Built in the late 1960s, Lindsey employs
distribution and retail footprint, which operates around 400 people, with around 350 contrac-
under the Harvest Energy brand.” Prax has some tors currently working on site. Total has been
150 filling stations in the UK. its owner since the very beginning. The French
“This will create unique opportunities for major first expressed interest in selling the
synergies with existing Prax-owned assets, as plant in 2010, but scrapped the plan two years
well as demonstrating our ongoing commitment later after failing to secure a buyer. The facility’s
to building a reliable supply chain to meet the capacity was halved from 220,000 bpd in 2016,
needs of our customers for many years to come,” after one of its crude distillation units was taken
he said. offline.
Prax also bought the Zeebrugge fuel depot Total finally struck a sales deal last year after
in Belgium from Total in October last year. The a collapse in its European refining margins as a
20,000-cubic metre depot will be used for storing result of coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown
marine bunkering fuels. measures. While fuel demand is now recover-
“Its strategic location in the outer port of Zee- ing, Total nevertheless wants to downsize its con-
brugge means the company can cater to many ventional oil-refining business and invest more
customers throughout North-West Europe, in biofuels, after calling time on oil demand. It
including car carriers, cruise ships, container plans to convert its 93,000 bpd Grandpuits oil
lines and RORO vessels, offering shipowners refinery near Paris to produce biofuels, primarily
and operators a minimum turnaround time in for the aviation industry. ™

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