The Czech investment group KKCG, owned by billionaire Karel Komárek, must submit more information about its six oil processing operations in Russia to the country’s antimonopoly office before the organ will review the company’s prospective purchase of an oil terminal in the Samara region.
KKCG announced in March that it had reached an agreement to buy the Ortini oil terminal near Oktyabrsk, Samara region, from the independent gas transportation and production company Itera. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Office has said that it will now review the transaction on May 2, provided KKCG submits the additional documentation requested.
The Ortini terminal is situated on a branch line of the Druzhba oil pipeline, through which the Czech Republic receives up to 70 percent of its oil. The terminal has a capacity of 3.4 million tons and is situated on an intersection of river and rail oil transport routes for transfer of supplies to the Druzhba.
Itera decided to sell the new Ortini terminal after its plans to extract oil in the Samara region were scrapped, according to the regional news server Samara.Ru. By contrast, KKCG’s subsidiary Moravské naftové doly (MND) has extraction licenses for several oilfields in the neighboring Ulyanovsk region.
In March, KKCG announced that it hoped to complete the acquisition in the first half of this year, though now it is unclear when the antimonopoly office may issue approval of the deal. The agreed purchase price for the terminal has not been revealed. The prospective purchaser of 100 percent of the oil terminal is KKCG SE, a Cypriot-registered subsidiary of KKCG.
MND is the largest Czech oil exploration and extraction company. The KKCG Group’s total assets are valued at approximately Kč 50 billion.
