The company Roserv Oil, part of the GRAMPET Group, acquired the industrial platform of the RAFO Onești refinery, announced CITR, the leader of the insolvency market in Romania. The sale transaction was completed with the objective of developing the largest logistics center for containers and petroleum products in Moldova, CITR said in a press release.
During the last 3 years, CITR has proposed for sale the RAFO platform in at least 10 selling procedures. Vasile Godîncă-Herlea, CEO of CITR, stated in an interview given to Energynomics Magazine in November 2019 that the starting price in the auction was 25 million dollars, much lower than the starting point in November 2018 – 44 million dollars. The central press announces that the industrial platform of the RAFO Onești refinery was finally bought for 6 million dollars. “Although there has been an apparent interest in this asset, unfortunately the refinery has not been in operation for more than 10 years, it has not benefited from investments in modernizing technologies used at the level of competitors and market requirements, relatively low production capacity and high costs for activity resumption, made this capitalization procedure very difficult”, CITR also states, in the quoted press release.
The future of the RAFO Onești platform
Roserv Oil is a newly established company that will focus on the national development of logistics terminals on both containers and warehouses for petroleum products. In this context, the company decided to buy the assets of the bankrupt RAFO Onești platform, with the aim of developing the largest logistics center that will serve the region of Moldova. This specialization complements the main activity objective of the GRAMPET Group, rail freight transport. With the takeover by Roserv Oil, RAFO Onești’s assets become productive assets, part of the GRAMPET Group’s commercial activity.
In this regard, the company aims to attract partners from companies specializing in the production of raw materials and to put into operation several facilities available on the platform.
With the takeover by Roserv Oil, the platform could generate, in the long run, at least 600 jobs; the first phase of the project involving traded assets will generate over 200 jobs. In the next period, Roserv Oil will start an evaluation process of the existing installations.
The RAFO Onești transaction comes after the sale of Borzești and Doicești assets
In 2019, Musat & Asociații – Restructuring / Insolvency, as judicial liquidator, finally managed to find buyers for two of the historical assets of Termoelectrica SA. The Doicești thermal power plant was put up for auction, together with other assets, initially in 2014, at a minimum price of 21.5 million euros (excluding VAT). About 30 more calls followed, with no results. The Doicești thermal power plant and the intermediate compression station in Aninoasa commune were awarded on August 30, 2019, at a price of 5.14 million euros (excluding VAT).
The Borzești thermal power plant was put up for sale for a minimum price of 17.5 million euros (excluding VAT), in July 2014. More than 20 calls followed, before Infinite Gas Development SRL from Bucharest paid about 6 million euro, at the end of 2019. In May 2020, Infinite Gas Development was taken over by RNV Infrastructure SRL, part of the energy group of companies Renovatio, one of the largest independent suppliers and traders of electricity in Romania, active in production renewable energy, as well as in the e-mobility segment. Currently, Borzești Power Plant has started to refurbish the unit, by demolishing one of the old chimneys of the thermal power plant, an action for which it requested an environmental agreement.