Asserting that only commercial considerations were the sole driving factor behind the $12.9 billion acquisition of Essar Oil, Rosneft, the new owners of the country’s second largest oil refinery, said they have a non-compete pact under which the Ruias will never be able to re-enter the oil refining and retailing sector in the country.
“The core of the deal the way it ended up is based on commercial valuation...They (new owners) are looking to make commercial returns, they want this to be commercially successful,” Tony Fountain, the newly-appointed chairman of Essar Oil that was sold to the Moscow-controlled oil giant Rosneft told reporters at a separate presser which was held after the Essar Group announced the conclusion of the deal earlier in the day.
The $12.9 billion deal, the largest FDI inflow into the country as also the largest investment out of Russia, was announced first by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladmir Putin during the annual BRICS Summit in Goa last October and got concluded today.
The deal involves a non-compete clause in the agreement, as per which the Ruias will not be able to enter any part of the oil refining and retailing in the country, EOl’s non-executive director Jonathan Kollek said.
However, the Ruias will continue to run their refinery in Britain wherein they has 9 million tonne facility at Stanlow and also their coal bed methane blocks in the country.