Polish-Hungarian government level talks on oil merger

The merger of oil concerns PKN Orlen and Hungarian MOL is so complicated that chances for concluding it over the next three years seems very unrealistic at present. Today, Treasury Minister Piotr Czyżewski is flying to Budapest to find out what degree of support the merger has from the Hungarian government. It is known that they are still planning to sell 10-15% of MOL's shares by the end of the year. At the same time Nafta Polska (NP) was also announcing its plans to sell its stake in PKN Orlen. The management of NP forecast three stages of the merger process and they plan to prepare the draft version of merger contract in the first quarter of 2004. This will envisage that both concerns would have a chance of acquiring a mutual share of about 15% of each others shares. Following that, they would transfer the shares to a newly created venture, to make the best use of them. The last stage would be final merger of the two companies into one enterprise. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, B1) M.M.