Filenews 28 December 2021 - by Adamos Adamou
Another obstacle, perhaps the last one in the effort to move the LPG facilities from the Larnaca seafront to Vassilikos, was overcome after the green light lit by the Commission for the Protection of Competition for the return of Hellenic Petroleum to the VLPG PLANT Ltd consortium. The consortium includes the other companies involved in the marketing of LPG in the area – Petrolina (Holdings) Public Ltd, The Cooperative Company Synergaz Ltd and Intergaz Ltd - and in this was initially the Hellenic Petroleum, which then left, to finally decide in the summer to return to the consortium with the acquisition of share capital of VLPG PLANT Ltd through YUGEN LIMITED from the other three companies.
The merger agreement needed the approval of the PSC, which gave its consent in a recent decision, under conditions and conditions that it had set in the past, when it again approved the merger and the composition of VLPG PLANT Ltd. The news of the approval of the agreement regarding the new shareholders of VLPG PLANT by the PSC was announced last week by the Hellenic Petroleum Group, but without reference to the terms of the approval given. The Group further said that the new facility in Vassilikos is expected to open next April-May. It is recalled that the operation of the new LPG facilities in Vassilikos, which is in fact a prerequisite for their removal and dismantling in Larnaca, was expected around the end of 2021, but due to the pandemic the timetables changed. Now, however, following the decision of the Hellenic Gas Company, the "move" of the LPG installations to the new terminal in Vassilikos is only a matter of time. Hellenic Petroleum, as mentioned, places the operation of the new Vassilikos in April-May 2022 however, according to information from "F", it is not excluded that this will happen faster, within the first quarter.
The "terms" of the PSC
As mentioned, however, the green light given by the PSC to the agreement of the four companies for the joint operation of the new LPG terminal in Vassilikos was made conditionally. Information provided by "F" indicates that the relevant decision of the Commission includes the terms and conditions set by the PSC when it approved the merger of the companies, before the addition to the Hellenic Petroleum consortium. This was to be expected since when the new agreement and the purchase of shares of VLPG PLANT by the Hellenic Petroleum Group were put before it, the PSC had raised serious doubts as to the compatibility of the transaction with the operation of competition in the market. In view of this, in approving the merger, the PSC set specific conditions for the operation of the consortium and the companies made specific commitments. According to the information provided by "F", as in the previous decision of the PSC in 2018, the following commitments are also recorded:
⦁ Ensure the concession of 10% of the storage space in Vassilikos to third parties, in case of expansion of the storage space.
⦁ Appointment of an independent third party responsible for verifying that all commitments made are being honoured and shall submit an annual report to the PSC within the first quarter of each year confirming whether or not the commitments made by the VLPG have been implemented in respect of the previous year.
⦁ Commitment to be present for one year in the sessions of the Board of Directors of VLPG of an independent third party, who will supervise the sessions and ensure that no illegal coordination is carried out in affected markets and that no sensitive information that does not concern VLPG is exchanged.
