Czech government mulls merger of Mero and Cepro

Industry Minister Martin Kuba plans to submit to the Czech government a plan to merge the state-owned oil pipeline operator Mero and oil products storage and processing company Cepro into a holding company that could buy a stake in refineries, Reuters reported.
A third of the holding could be offered to oil suppliers such as Russia’s LUKoil, Gazprom Neft and Rosneft, Azerbaijan’s SOCAR and Kazakhstan’s KasMunaiGas. The merged company could then buy into the local oil refinery Ceska Rafinerska, which is presently owned by Italy’s ENI, Unipetrol, a large oil distribution company in the Czech Republic which is majority owned by the Polish company PKN Orlen, and Royal Dutch Shell. (November 23, 2012)