India’s Bharat Petroleum buys OQ’s entire stake in Bina refinery

India’s Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) has reportedly acquired a 36.62% stake in Bina refinery situated at Bina in Madhya Pradesh, India from OQ (formerly known as Oman Oil Company), for INR24bn ($327.1m).

A sales purchase agreement has been signed by BPCL with OQ whereby the Indian firm will acquire OQ’s entire stake in Bharat Oman Refineries, which operates the 7.8 million tonnes per annum capacity oil refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.

BPCL had a 63.4% holding in BORL while OQ owned a 36.6% interest.

BPCL finance director N Vijayagopal said: “With the acquisition, BPCL will establish control over BORL. This is expected to bring immense advantages to both the companies in terms of synergies and optimisation of returns and will facilitate any future expansion or diversification in Bina.”

Through compulsorily convertible warrants, the state government of Madhya Pradesh in India owns minor stake in BORL.

Incorporated in 1994, BORL also has single point mooring (SPM) system, crude oil terminal (COT) and a 937km-long cross-country crude oil pipeline from Vadinar, Gujarat to Bina, Madhya Pradesh.

The Indian government is considering divesting its entire stake in BPCL.

The privatisation-bound company recently divested its entire 61.5% stake in Numaligarh Refinery in Assam to consortium of Oil India (OIL) and Engineers India and Government of Assam for nearly INR98.76bn ($1.34bn).

Oil India acquired a 54.16% stake in NRL from BPCL, increasing its total stake in NRL to 80.16%.

Engineers India has independently acquired over 3.21 crore equity shares or 4.4% stake in NRL.

The remaining 2.29 crore equity shares has been transferred by BPCL to the Government of Assam on receipt of consideration of nearly INR5bn ($68.1m).