MOSCOW (MRC) -- Idemitsu has signed an agreement to acquire Shell’s 33.24% stake in its Japanese venture Showa Shell Sekiyu KK for JPY 169 billion (approximately USD1.4 billion), as per Business Standard.
Shell will retain a 1.80% holding in the company. The transaction is expected to complete in 2016, subject to obtaining regulatory and contractual approval.
"The sale is consistent with Shell’s strategy to concentrate its downstream footprint on a smaller number of assets and markets where it can be most competitive. Idemitsu is an established and successful company and is well positioned to take up Shell’s shareholding," said John Abbott, Shell Downstream Director.
Shell’s presence in Japan spans more than 100 years and it remains an important LNG market for Shell’s upstream integrated gas business. It also remains an important market for Shell’s downstream business conducted in partnership with Showa Shell, including lubricants, chemicals and trading. Shell will continue to license its brand to Showa Shell for use in its retail business.
Other recent downstream divestments include the sale of downstream businesses in Australia and Italy; a number of retail sites in the UK; and the initial public offering of, and further drop downs to, Shell Midstream Partners LP. Shell has also agreed the sale of its marketing business in Denmark and Norway and its LPG businesses in France.
We remind that, as MRC wrote before, Idemitsu Kosan shut its refinery in Japan for a one-month maintenance turnaround in April 2015.Located at Chiba in Japan, the refinery has a crude processing capacity of 220,000 bpd.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
Idemitsu Kosan is a Japanese petroleum company. It owns and operates oil platforms, refineries and produces and sells petroleum, oils and petrochemical products. The company runs two petrochemical plants in Chiba and Tokuyama. The two naphtha crackers can produce up to 997,000 tonnes of ethylene per year.
MRC