Bloomberg: "KazMunayGas may acquire a plant in Bulgaria for $1 billion."

The process of transferring the asset, if the purchase goes ahead, may take about a month. The preliminary deal amount is around one billion dollars.

According to a source from Bloomberg, one of the conditions for the sale of the Bulgarian refinery to KazMunayGas is that no money should be transferred to Russia. However, neither KMG, nor Lukoil, nor the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy provided comments to the foreign publication regarding the potential deal.

Financial analyst Jonathan Lamb believes that the acquisition of the Burgas refinery by KazMunayGas would be beneficial for the national company, as the Bulgarian plant would not be required to adhere to the production quotas set for enterprises within Kazakhstan. Additionally, this acquisition would double the capacities owned by KMG in Europe. Moreover, the price of one billion dollars seems quite low.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European countries ceased purchasing Russian oil and increased imports of raw materials from Kazakhstan: they now buy about 80% of the oil supplied through the CPC pipeline. Bulgaria banned the import of Russian oil starting January 1, 2024, after which Kazakhstan's share among hydrocarbon suppliers to the country rose to 40%. Lukoil has begun planning the sale of its refinery in Burgas, citing "discriminatory laws and unfair, politically motivated decisions regarding the enterprise."

In November of last year, the Financial Times reported that KazMunayGas had allegedly dropped out of the list of contenders to purchase the Burgas refinery. The publication claimed that Lukoil would sell the plant to an international consortium involving investors from Qatar and the UK. A few hours later, Litasco denied this information.