Essar Oil to buy a 50% stake in Kenya Petroleum Refinery

Essar Oil’s subsidiary, Essar Energy Overseas will buy a 50% stake in Kenya Petroleum Refinery (KPRL) in Mombasa.

The company will acquire the stake from Shell Petroleum Company, Chevron Global Energy and BP Africa, who are the existing shareholders. They had taken a decision to sell their cumulative 50% stake in the refinery in January last year. The remaining stake in the 4-million-tonne-a-year refinery will be retained by the Kenyan government.

The company will also upgrade Kenya’s only refinery at a cost of $400-450 million.