Dec 14, 2006, 15:02 GMT
Vilnius - Defunct Russian oil giant Yukos sold its stake in troubled Lithuanian refinery Mazeikiu Nafta to Polish refiner PKN Orlen on Thursday in the biggest deal in Lithuanian history.
The deal, handled by the Vilnius stock exchange, saw Yukos' 53.7- per-cent stake in Mazeikiu change hands for 3.88 billion litas (1.49 billion dollars).
And the Lithuanian government is expected to sell Orlen a further 30.66 per cent of Mazeikiu on Friday for an estimated 851.8 million dollars, with Polish premier Jaroslaw Kaczynski reportedly planning to attend.
Mazeikiu is the biggest corporation and the only refinery in the Baltic states. It recorded a net profit of 885.7 million litas in 2005, with annual revenues of 11.15 billion litas.
But the closure of the pipeline supplying it with Russian oil in July, and a fire in October, led it to more than halve its profit forecast for 2006 to 245 million litas, despite record incomes.
PKN Orlen, the largest oil refiner in Central Europe, is part- owned by the Polish state. It owns a string of refineries and petrol stations in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany.
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