Page 4 - Downstream Monitor - MEA Week 24

DMEA Commentary DMEA
Rock bottom
bid submitted
for SAMIR
A bid has been submitted for the assets of Moroccan re ner SAMIR, undercutting earlier offers with the company now nearly defunct.
afriCa
What:
The operator of
the 200,000 bpd Mohammedia re nery ceased operating in late 2015 and administrators and the government have been scrambling to nd a buyer amid a major ongoing legal battle.
Why:
SAMIR’s failure has been determined by the courts as being the result of mismanagement, but accusations continue to y between shareholders and local authorities.
What next:
A bid by UK-based Exol has been broadly met with derision and the company may struggle to convince the authorities itisuptothejob.
ThE latest twist in the protracted sale of debt- laden Societe Anonyme Marocaine de l’Indus- trie et du Ra nage (SAMIR) came last week in the form of a lowball bid by the Moroccan sub- sidiary of UK-based Exol Lubricants Ltd.
SAMIR, the owner of the North African country’s only re nery at Mohammedia, was put up for sale in February 2017 a er the rm went into liquidation.
Exol was reported to have submitted an o er of US$8.23 million for the assets, undercut- ting earlier bids by trading specialists Glencore (US$14.99 million) and Trafigura (US$11.70 million) and a far cry from the administrator’s initial asset valuation of US$2.5-3 billion. e assets are understood to also include storage facilities and interests in distribution and mar- keting. It is not known whether the Glencore and Tra gura o ers remain on the table.
Either way, the latest bid has not gone down well with the parties involved in the liquidation process, with local media reports suggesting it had been viewed as ‘too low’ and ‘below market standards’.
out of action
e 200,000 bpd re nery ceased operating in late 2015 as debts le the company unable to
nance fresh purchases of crude feedstock and Saudi-Ethiopian majority owner Mohamed al-Amoudi reneged on a promised capital injec- tion. Al-Amoudi’s Sweden-based Corrall Petro- leum holdings held a 67% stake in SAMIR.
The Commercial Court of Casablanca ordered liquidation in March 2016; a deci- sion upheld three months later by the Court of Appeal. In late September, Corrall’s legal ave- nues were exhausted, as the Court of Cassation con rmed the verdict, ruling that the wind-up should proceed.
Creditors owed part of SAMIR’s estimated 44 billion-dirham (US$4.6 billion) debt have been queuing up to have their claims validated by the courts in order to secure a slice of the proceeds from the sell-o .
On July 31, 2018, the Casablanca Commer- cial Court of Appeal ruled that the local Banque Centrale Populaire (BCP) – a major lender to the company – had obtained valid guarantees against lending of 1.25 billion Moroccan dir- hams (US$132 million) of debt, out of total borrowings from the bank of around 2.9 billion dirhams (US$307 million).
BCP thereby secured a place as a senior credi- tor, with privileged claims on liquidated assets. A month earlier Glencore – another major creditor
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 24 19•June•2019