 Saudi Aramco will buy a $2 billion stake in S-Oil Corp, South Korea’s third-largest oil refiner, according to the Saudi Gazette.
The company will buy almost all of Hanjin Energy Co’s stake in S-Oil, and the purchase was earlier reported by the Maeil Business Newspaper, which cited S-Oil chief executive officer Nasser Al-Mahasher saying Aramco will buy Hanjin’s entire stake.
Dhahran-based Aramco, the South Korean refiner’s largest shareholder, currently owns 35% of S-Oil, followed by Hanjin’s 28.4%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Korean Air Lines Co, South Korea’s biggest carrier, said on December 19 that it planned to sell 30 million shares of S-Oil as part of a plan to raise $3.2 billion through asset sales to cut debt.
Saudi Aramco will supply full contractual volume in February to customers in Europe, unchanged from this month, and Saudi Aramco will provide 100% of crude cargoes sold under long-term contracts, according to reports.
While Aramco has the option to reduce monthly sales volumes to term buyers, the producer has not done so since November 2009.
Aramco in September exported 910,000 barrels a day of Arab Light and Extra Light blends to European members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development excluding Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil market report on December 11.
No Arab Medium was shipped to Europe, compared with 30,000 barrels a day in August.
