Coryton attracts 40 suitors
UK REFINERY Coryton has attracted more than 40 interested parties following the insolvency of its owner, Swiss refining group Petroplus and some of them are “very credible,” its administrator said yesterday.
“There have been over 40 expressions of interest from the speculative to the highly credible,” said Katherine Howbrook, a spokeswoman for PwC.
“There have been a wide variety [of interested parties] including from major European oil companies to trading houses and companies from the Middle East and Russia.”
The Coryton refinery, which can process 175,000 barrels of crude oil per day, has been in UK administration with PwC since 24 January.
The administrator bought one cargo of crude on Tuesday, allaying fears that a lack of supplies would force it to stop operations.
The plant is the most sophisticated – and most profitable – of the company’s refineries. Coryton supplies 10 per cent of the UK’s fuel overall and 20 per cent in the south east.
Energy minister Charles Hendry has been working to keep the site open and has expressed fears that petrol supplies could be hit. East of England MEP Richard Howitt also said he feared petrol supplies would be affected and any job losses would have a “devastating impact” on the local economy.
However, analysts from KBC Energy Economics said that other UK refineries had been running at only around 80 per cent of capacity in 2011, meaning they had plenty of spare capacity to make up for a shortfall from Coryton.
Even before Petroplus filed for insolvency, Coryton had been refining at significantly below its maximum capacity.