Hungarian MOL has requested to purchase the Lukoil Neftohim Burgas refinery

Hungarian oil and gas group MOL wants to purchase the Lukoil refinery in Bulgaria. This was stated by Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a briefing in Budapest, a day after he paid a visit to Bulgaria at the invitation of President Rumen Radev, during which he also met with GERB leader Boyko Borisov.

According to the Hungarian Prime Minister, the company has submitted a bid for the refinery in Burgas and is one of the seven candidates.

MTI and Reuters reported the news and quoted Orban as saying that the Russian company wants to sell the refinery at an open auction, and MOL is the only candidate from the European Union.

"Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán is pushing for the deal, as evidenced by his visits to Bulgarian officials, including President Radev," Cyril Wiedershofen, a consultant and researcher at Hill Tower Resource Advisors, wrote in oilprice.com.

No such interest was publicly mentioned during Orbán's meetings with Radev and Borisov in Sofia. In his joint statement with the Hungarian prime minister, the Bulgarian head of state said that "our country will continue to be a reliable partner in energy and a guarantor of security of supply and diversification of energy resources for our allies in Central and Eastern Europe."

For his part, Orbán stressed: "Bulgaria has always been a key country for our security, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine. 85% of our economy works with gas and we strive to secure this gas through Bulgaria. Last year we imported 5.6 billion cubic meters of gas through Bulgaria, and this year 7 billion. Bulgaria has helped us a lot for this and we want to thank you for this assistance."

The question of a possible deal to sell the Burgas refinery comes nearly a year after Lukoil officially announced that it planned to sell its business in Bulgaria. This happened after a series of actions by the then parliament and government against the Russian company. They were part of Bulgaria's refusal of Russian fuels after the start of Russia's war against Ukraine in 2022.

The sale of Lukoil was also discussed last month after a Financial Times publication claiming that the deal had been agreed and that the buyer was a Qatari-British consortium. The publication announced that the Russian company was selling its majority stake in Lukoil Neftohim Burgas and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally aware of the sale, who must approve it.

The publication claimed that a consortium consisting of Oryx Global, controlled by Qatari businessman Ghanim Bin Saad Al Saad, and London-based commodities trading house DL Hudson had been selected as the preferred buyer. It also stated that Lukoil expressed a desire to complete the deal before the end of the year.

A day later, Lukoil itself publicly announced that "the assumptions made in these publications are inaccurate and misleading." Litasco, a part of the Lukoil group of companies, announced that the Financial Times publication "speculated about a deal involving a Qatari-British consortium." The Ministry of Energy also announced that it was surprised.