India’s BPCL plans to complete stake sale in NRL by end of March

India’s Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) has plans to complete the sale of a 61.65% stake in Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) in the Indian state of Assam to Oil India (OIL) and the Government of Assam by the end of March.

The company’s board at a meeting this week gave its approval to the share purchase agreement.

BPCL director of finance N Vijaygopal told LiveMint: “The consortium of OIL and Engineers India Ltd will acquire 49% and the rest (13.65%) will be sold to the government of Assam.”

This move comes ahead of the BPCL privatisation.

Vijaygopal further added: “NRL stake sale is happening at a rapid pace. Valuation is being done by valuers and if things go as planned, the transaction will be completed by 31 March.”

The completion of the deal is subject to receipt of necessary government approvals.

The stake sale of NRL is the first move to BPCL disinvestment.

The central government will sell its entire 52.98% stake in BPCL and expects the privatisation to complete in the first half of fiscal year (2021-22) beginning in April.

Vedanta Group, and private equity firms such as Apollo Global, I Squared Capital have earlier evinced interest in acquiring stakes in BPCL.

The acquisition of BPCL will provide the buyer ownership of around 15% share in the country’s oil refining capacity and 22% in the fuel marketing.

NRL is expanding its refining capacity from 3 million tonnes every year to 9 million tonnes a year at an investment of Rs225.9m ($4.18bn) by the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, BPCL plans to finalise the deal to acquire the 36.62% stake it does not own in Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL) from OQ SAOC, which was earlier called as Oman Oil Company SAOC, in the next 10 days.

BORL operates a 7.8 million tonne oil refinery at Bina in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Vijayagopal said: “We have concluded the discussions with OQ SAOC, and the deal will be finalised in the next 10 days.”