Hints and tips:
...He founded and ran Swiss-based oil refiner Petroplus before selling it to Carlyle and its former New York-based partner Riverstone in 2005....
...In its 2007-2012 incarnation, Petroplus went on an acquisition binge and took on too much debt. It was a pure refiner and hence far more exposed to commodity prices and margins....
...Mr van Poecke was a founder of Petroplus Holdings, which became Europe’s largest independent oil refinery before it was taken private in 2005 by Carlyle and Riverstone....
...Mr van Poecke founded Petroplus in 1993 and left in late 2007, before the company went bankrupt in early 2012....
...Gunvor, the Swiss-based commodity trader, last year bought two from Petroplus, one in Antwerp and another in Ingolstadt, Germany....
...When Libyan production went offline completely for several months in 2011, it hastened the bankruptcy of Petroplus, a Swiss refiner....
...That could be a relief for Gunvor and Vitol, which moved into the refining business last year, buying assets at rock-bottom prices when Swiss refiner Petroplus went bankrupt....
...Vitol and Gunvor bought several large refineries previously owned by Petroplus, the bankrupt Swiss-based refiner, at minimal values last year....
...Coryton was put up for sale after its Swiss parent, Petroplus – Europe’s largest independent refiner – declared itself insolvent in January 2012....
...Vitol bought a refinery previously owned by Petroplus, the bankrupt Swiss-based refiner, at a minimal value last year....
...Qatar Holding is set to become a shareholder too in Glencore if the merger of the trader with miner Xstrata comes to a close....
...The purchase of the two refineries from Petroplus will give Gunvor roughly 200,000 b/d of refining capacity, the highest among the independent oil traders....
...Coryton is one of five refineries owned by Petroplus, the Swiss refiner that filed for insolvency in January after becoming a casualty of weak European demand for petroleum products and thin refining profit...
...A Petroplus spokesman could not be reached for comment....
...Its parent company, Switzerland’s Petroplus, filed for bankruptcy in January....
...Though not the most valuable of Petroplus’s refining assets, it is strategically located in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp oil trading hub....
...Gunvor, another leading oil trader, on Thursday completed the acquisition of another Petroplus refinery in Antwerp....
...“No matter how much central bank money there is in the system, Petroplus would still have failed, and there will be others,” he says....
...Thus, the current slump could help traders expand their fixed asset holdings, helping them move away from their reliance on the middleman business model....
...Uncertainty about Coryton’s future increased after PwC, Petroplus’s administrator, suspended product shipments from the refinery....
...The trader recently expanded into refining with the acquisition of two plants previously owned by bankrupt Petroplus: the 100,000 b/d Ingolstadt refinery in Germany and the 100,000 b/d refinery in Antwerp...
...So far there have been only two defaults on publicly rated debt this year, by Yell and Petroplus, the Swiss-based refiner....
...The fact that Coryton, the UK refinery owned by Petroplus, is facing closure after the administrator failed to find a buyer is a sign of the challenge the European industry faces....
...PwC was appointed as administrator of Petroplus’s UK subsidiaries....
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