BPCL To Consider Buying Oman Oil Stake In Bina Refinery
BPCL holds 63.68% stake in Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd, which built and operates a 7.8 million tonne oil refinery at Bina.
Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. has said its board will on Thursday consider buying out Oman Oil Company in the Bina refinery project in Madhya Pradesh.
BPCL board will also consider merging Bharat Gas Resources Ltd., with itself, the company said in a filing to the stock exchanges on Tuesday.
BPCL holds 63.68% stake in Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd., which built and operates a 7.8 million tonne oil refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.
The company board will on Dec. 17 “consider a proposal for according ‘in-principle’ approval” for “acquisition of 36.62% of equity shares in BORL from OQ S.A.O.C. (formerly known as Oman Oil Company S.A.O.C.),” it said.
This would amount to the acquisition of 88.8 crore equity shares from Oman Oil.
The board would also consider a proposal to approach the Madhya Pradesh government for acquiring 2.69 crore warrants held by it in Bharat Oman Refineries.
The meeting would also consider “merger of Bharat Gas Resources Ltd. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of BPCL) with BPCL,” the filing said.
BPCL incorporated Bharat Gas Resources for handling the natural gas business in June 2018. It won the licence to retail compressed natural gas to automobiles and piped natural gas to households and industries in 13 geographical areas under round 9 and round 10 of City Gas Distribution.
Bharat Gas Resources is also planning to put up an LNG import terminal along the East Coast of India.
Oman Oil had recently expressed interest to divest its stake in Bharat Oman Refineries.
Bharat Oman Refineries became a subsidiary of BPCL in March this year when it converted warrants into shares taking the state-owned refiner's stake in the erstwhile equal joint venture to 63.38%.
In addition to the equity investment in BHarat Oman Refineries, BPCL had subscribed to zero percent compulsorily convertible debentures of Rs 1,000 crore and share warrants of Rs 1,585.68 crores which on conversion would turn the former into a subsidiary of BPCL.