Essar Oil - Rosneft deal to change the refining landscape in the country
Essar Oil has sealed definitive agreements to sell its flagship asset, refinery business along with retail network and related infrastructure of Ports to Russian oil conglomerate Rosneft, international trading firm Trafigura and Russian Investment fund UCP for an enterprise value of approximately $13 billion. This is a landmark deal for India, which over the years tried to attract investments in the refining sector without much success. As long as the petrol and diesel prices were controlled, the market wasn’t lucrative for any foreign player. The Rosneft deal first came up when both petrol and diesel prices were deregulated giving a level playing field between the private and public sector refiners to market their products within the country. While Reliance, the only other private player in refining company built, expanded its refineries with export focus, Essar by far sold much of its refined petroleum products within the country through public sector refining and ...