Gdansk Refinery - all parties will be allowed to bid

The government yesterday finally officially announced its policy towards the privatization of the Gdansk Refinery (RG). Rather than granting PKN Orlen or the Lukoil consortium exclusive privatization rights, the government settled on the idea of allowing all interested parties to participate in the tender to buy RG. The new approach towards the oil sector, "May mean we have to cancel the present tender, but there are many other legal ways of avoiding this problem," said Treasury Minister Wieslaw Kaczmarek. One way out would be to allow Plock-based PKN to enter into a consortium with British Rotch Energy, which still has exclusive rights for negotiations until 17 October. "Whatever happens, one should not expect the privatization of RG this year," explained Kaczmarek. In this way the Minister dashed the hopes of Russian Lukoil to gain control over a major Polish oil company. The local government in Gdansk is not happy with the decision, and will present a third option for RG to the Minister. "We would like to see it consolidate with Petrobaltic and three small oil companies in the South of Poland. This new company could then be floated on the Warsaw Stock Exchange," said Jan Zarebski, the Marshall of Pomorskie voivodship. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 3) M.M.