Prague - Italian oil and gas group Eni wants to sell a third of Czech refinery Ceska rafinerska to Gazprom of Russia, the server Ceska pozice.cz said today.
The information was confirmed to the server by a government source and another two sources from the petrochemical industry.
A high ranking manager from a large company operating on the Czech market said Eni had already informed the other two shareholders, Unipetrol and Shell, that it was in talks with Gazprom on the sale of its stake.
Ceska rafinerska is 51-percent owned by Unipetrol. Eni holds more than 32 percent of its shares. The remaining block of shares - over 16 percent - is in the hands of the British-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell. These firms process oil into fuels in the Litvinov and Kralupy nad Vltavou refineries in an amount corresponding to their stakes.
Eni and Gazprom signed an agreement on strategic cooperation in 2006, the server said.
Russia, a major supplier of oil via the Druzhba pipeline and owner of petrol stations Lukoil, is likely to further strengthen its position in the Czech petrochemical and energy industries this year. To create a vertical chain, Russia needs a stake in refineries, which could soon become a reality, the server said.
