Rompetrol will buy back some of the shares of the Romanian government in Rompetrol Rafinare

The "Rompetrol" Group and the Romanian state have concluded on Friday a memorandum of understanding for terminating the dispute concerning the conversion of the bonds of "Rompetrol Rafinare" into stock, in favor of the Romanian state, according to a press release.

Based on the agreement, it was agreed that the Group would buy back part of the shares the Romanian group owns in "Rompetrol Rafinare" (the operator of the Petromidia Năvodari and Vega Ploieşti refineries), even though it will remain a significant shareholder of the company in the county of Constanţa.

"The state will be left with a stake of over 18% and it will receive the equivalent value negotiated with the Kazakh partners, but I repeat, it is not selling everything and it is not earning the price for the entire stake", Remus Vulpescu, the representative of the government in Rompetrol, said on TV.

Last week, prime Minister Victor Ponta had said that the government is continuing the negotiations for the sale of the shares in "Rompetrol Rafinare" and that it is hoping to reach an agreement by today, when a new hearing is supposed to take place in the lawsuit on that matter, and absent an agreement the decision could be made by the court, which could however generate other repercussions as well.

The agreement will be completed in the coming period, after the setting and the licensing of all the technical and commercial details, but after their approval by the authorities and by the Board of Directors of the National Oil and Gas company in Kazahstan, "KazMunayGas", the sole shareholder of the Rompetrol Group, according to the quoted press release.

Following the conversion of the bonds issued in 2003, the Romanian state, through the Ministry of the Economy, became a shareholder of "Rompetrol Rafinare" in 2010, with a holding of 44.69%.

In October 2003, the Government issued an ordinance concerning the conversion into bonds with a 7-year maturity of the arrears to the state budget which Rompetrol had on September 30, 2003, worth 603 million dollars, including interest and penalties.

The maturity for the buyback of the bonds was September 30, 2010, but by that time Rompetrol Rafinare had only redeemed 71 million dollars worth of bonds. The total amount of the interest paid by the company between 2003 and 2010 in service of the bonds issue was over 250 million lei.

Shares of RRC, which had fallen 6.37% on Thursday to 0.0544 lei, after rising 67.4% during the previous sessions, rose 8.27% on Friday.