Refining the deal

Polyolefins giant Basell has made an offer to buy the Shell oil refinery and associated infrastructure and businesses at the Berre l'Etang petrochemical complex in France for $700m.

Subject to staff council consultation, review and approval from regulatory authorities and agreement on the sale and purchase documents, the transaction is expected to close early 2008.

With world-scale polypropylene and polyethylene plants, a steam cracker and butadiene extraction unit at the same site and a polyethylene plant at nearby Fos sur Mer, Basell is currently the largest customer of the Shell refinery. The refinery’s products include naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), fuels for a variety of applications, bitumen and heating oil.

'The refinery is of strategic importance to Basell because it provides a further backward integration of our activities at the Berre site, one of our core European sites,' said Volker Trautz, CEO of Basell. 'Its products play an important role in support of our Polyolefins Europe business and through the acquisition we will be able to operate more effectively.'