US Firm Offers €850m For Albania Oil Reserves

Vetro Energy, a US-based consortium, is the frontrunner in a tender to buy Albania’s state-owned oil company, Albpetrol, with an offer of €850 million.Albania’s Deputy Economy Minister, Sokol Dervishaj, said that Vetro Energy, which is bidding through the Vetro Silk Road Equity Ltd consortium out of Singapore, ranked first out of eight companies bidding for Albpetrol.

The US company was followed by the Chinese consortium Win Business and Bankers Petroleum of Canada. Two other companies, Ecolog and Gazprom, were excluded from the tender owing to a lack of documents.

Vetro’s bid for Albetrol is double the value placed on the state-owned oil firm’s assets by advisers to the sale. It is equivalent to 10 per cent of the country’s GDP.

If it goes through with the bid, Vetro Energy will secure all of Albpetrol’s above ground assets and exploration rights for a period of 25 years.

Before the sale, the government added the right to build a refinery and to transport gas to Albpetrol’s license.

Most of Albpetrol’s oilfields are currently run by foreign companies under output-sharing agreements.