The world’s largest oil trader, Vitol has teamed up with Marcel Van Poecke, co-founder of Petroplus, to buy the Cressier refinery in Switzerland. Petroplus administrator, Wenger-Plattner reported last week that Varo Holding SA – the joint venture between Vitol and Van Poecke’s AtlasInvest – had agreed to buy the Cressier plant and will complete the transaction by the end of June.   The move is seen as part of the Vitol’s drive to expand into physical assets. The 68,000 barrel per day plant will resume activities after the handover is completed, added the administrator, dismissing the suggestion that the plant will be converted to storage. A quality, niche refinery, storage assets and wholesale marketing opportunities Vitol’s chief executive, Ian Taylor, said that the transaction provides the company with access to a “quality, niche refinery and a supply chain of storage assets and wholesale marketing opportunities.” He predicted that it would become a valuable source of growth for the Vitol Group. Varo’s main rival for the Cressier plant was strongly rumoured to have been former Russian energy minister, Igor Yusufov, via his investment arm, Fund Energy. Coryton Marcel Van Poecke, who founded Petroplus in 1993, and oversaw its operations for 13 years, has also been involved in offering a temporary lifeline at Coryton. Fuel Oil News contacted PwC, administrators for Coryton yesterday and can report that there is no further comment at this time.  Bids closed on 2nd April.  Gary Klesch is rumoured to be among those interested. Yesterday a crude oil tanker was heading for Coryton.  Does this mark the end of the three month rescue deal or the start of a new one? Antwerp Swiss-based trader Gunvor has completed the acquisition of Petroplus’ Antwerp plant in Belgium which will restart in the next few days after a four-month outage Return to emailshot http://www.andpublishing.co.uk/fueloilnews.co.uk/email/index.php

Concerned that the merger of Total Butler and GB Oils would remove a key competitor to GB Oils; the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) referred the acquisition to the Competition Commission just before Easter.   In England and Wales, GB Oils has 100 depots whilst Total Butler has 40. Both supply a similar range of oil products to domestic, commercial and agricultural customers.   Of particular concern to the OFT is the supply to customers who require deliveries across multiple sites, but whose volumes are too small for them to be viably served by the major oil companies or by oil traders.   “Although there are a large number of oil distributors operating in theUK, three of them stand out in terms of the scale of their networks: the two merging parties and Watson Fuels,” said Amelia Fletcher, OFT chief economist and decision maker in this case.   “A significant number of multiple site, non-bulk customers, who need suppliers with access to such infrastructure, were concerned at the prospect of a merger of GB Oils and Total Butler. We consider that the Competition Commission should look in detail at the impact of the merger on these customers, as well as whether the merger may result in higher prices for customers buying oil products in specific local areas where the parties overlap.”   The Competition Commission is expected to report on the case by 18th September 2012.