AtlasInvest in second European refinery acquisition
Along with Vitol, AtlasInvest will buy and re-start the Cressier refinery in Switzerland
A venture between investment company AtlasInvest and oil trader Vitol is to buy and re-start the Cressier, Switzerland, refinery, shut down after its owner, Petroplus, went into administration in January. The deal, announced in early-May, is the second recent refinery acquisition by AtlasInvest – which is owned by Marcel van Poecke, the oil trader who co-founded Petroplus in 1993. The Vitol-AtlasInvest joint-venture, Varo, signed to buy the 68,000 barrels a day (b/d) refinery together with Petroplus’s marketing, storage and pipeline assets in Switzerland, for an unspecified price. Vitol describes Cressier – one of two refineries in the country, which Petroplus bought from Shell – as “a quali
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