Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:00 PM BST
SINGAPORE, April 20 (Reuters) – The agreement of powerful French unions is key to oil major Royal Dutch Shell’s
Shell has said it is reviewing a number of refining and petrochemicals feedstock assets, including the three French sites, amid moves by a number of oil majors including BP
Rob Routs, Shell’s Executive Director Downstream, told Reuters in an interview that he hoped the review could be completed by the end of the year.
“There is a structure of unions… that have a lot of impact on this process,” he said. “We’ve told the unions very clearly we don’t have any investment plans in France anymore. A new buyer will be much more ready to invest there than we are.”
The Business magazine in the UK reported in November that the sale could raise up to $4 billion for the world’s third-largest listed oil firm by market value.
The deal would shave another 7.5 percent off Shell’s global refining assets, which totalled just over 4 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2006, down more than 300,000 bpd from four years earlier.
Shell’s 142,000-bpd Petit Couronne refinery is its largest in France and accounts for about 7 percent of the country’s refining capacity. Shell also operates the 80,000-bpd Berre L’Etang and 77,000-bpd Reichstett plants.
Russia’s biggest firm LUKOIL
Analysts have also mooted Swiss-based refiner Petroplus
Shell is also reviewing the Yabucoa petrochemical feedstock plant in Puerto Rico, which has a capacity of 79,000 bpd.
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