Russian oil producer Rosneft on Monday announced that it had closed a deal to acquire 49% stake in Indian private refiner Essar Oil. A consortium comprising Singapore-based trading firm Trafigura and Russia-based financial investor UCP also announced that they had finalised a deal to acquire a separate 49.13% stake in Essar Oil.
The agreement comes nearly a year after it was announced in October 2016 that the Kremlin-controlled Rosneft and the other firms will acquire a combined stake of 97.4% in Essar Oil. The $12-billion (Rs 78,000 crore) deal includes $4.5-billion (approximately Rs 27,000 crore) in assumed debt. It is believed to be the largest foreign direct investment in India till date.
Apart from Essar’s four lakh barrel-per-day refinery, the agreement includes the sale of the Vadinar Power Company, two ports and more than 3,000 retail outlets.
Rosneft’s Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin said the oil producer will help Essar improve its financial performance and adopt an asset development strategy. He called the deal “a remarkable achievement for Rosneft” as with this, the company entered “the high-potential and fast-growing Asia-Pacific market”.
The agreement will help Essar owners, the Ruias, reduce their debt, which was pegged at Rs 88,000 crore in March 2016. Company Director Prashant Ruia said the firm will pay back as much as Rs 70,000 crore to lenders, including the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and IDBI Bank, to bring the group’s debt down by over 60%, PTI reported.
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