Polish refinery Rafineria Gdanska and fuel importer Unimot have been put on a protected entities list by the Polish government after concerns raised over Rafineria Gdanska’s sale to Saudi firm Aramco.
In early 2022, Poland’s biggest fuel firm, PKN Orlen, took over its smaller peer Lotos but was required by the European Commission (EC) to divest parts of the newly acquired company. Orlen decided to sell a 30% stake in Lotos’s Rafineria Gdanska to Saudi Aramco and 417 Lotos petrol stations in Poland to Hungarian fuel firm MOL. As part of the EC requirements, Unimot bought a stake in Lotos too.
But opposition parties raised concerns that the Saudi share could pose a security threat for Polish fuel supplies.
On December 29, 2022 the government added Lotos and Unimot to a list of 13 other protected companies, which included the fuel leader PKN Orlen, fertiliser producer Azoty, copper miner KGHM and a few telecom companies.
In a rationale to the decision, the government said the move was designed to prevent an uncontrolled sale of the stake in Rafineria Gdanska.
The Ministry of State Assets said that Rafineria Gdanska held an important share of the Polish refinery market and was a significant supplier of engine fuels in the country. (The First News/Business World Magazine)
