Thread: Saudi Aramco-Motiva in lead to buy Lyondell's Houston refinery

Tue Sep 6, 2016 | 1:34am EDT

Saudi Aramco-Motiva in lead to buy Lyondell's Houston refinery: sources

A general view of the Lyondell-Basell refinery in Houston, Texas February 1, 2015. REUTERS/Richard Carson (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENERGY BUSINESS) - RTR4NT0V

By Erwin Seba and Jessica Resnick-Ault | HOUSTON/NEW YORK

Saudi Aramco and its U.S. refining joint-venture Motiva Enterprises [MOTIV.UL] lead the race to buy LyondellBasell Industries Houston refinery, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

An announcement of the sale by Lyondell is expected this week, the sources said.

Lyondell spokesman Michael Waldron declined on Monday to discuss a sale of the refinery.

Reuters reported on Aug. 25 that Dutch chemical company Lyondell had retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch to help with a sale of the refinery.

A company spokeswoman said in August, "the refinery may be more valuable as part of a larger refining system. We are exploring all options."

Lyondell uses the Houston refinery to produce feedstocks for its chemical plants. The refinery can run a variety of cheaper high-sulfur crude oils. In the past few years it has been running a large amount of Canadian oil.

The 263,776 barrel per day (bpd) Houston refinery was restoring production on Monday after an early Thursday morning power outage, the latest in a string of fires, shutdowns and power outages that have cut the plant's production throughout year.

Saudi Aramco-Motiva emerged as the leading contender over the weekend, when Lyondell's management evaluated proposals from potential buyers, the sources said.

Aramco-Motiva and Canada's Suncor Energy Inc were exchanging proposals with Lyondell in the past few days, according to the sources.

Little was heard about another potential buyer, Valero Energy Corp, the sources said.

Saudi Aramco, Motiva, Suncor and Valero did not reply to messages seeking comment.

The refinery has been valued at about $1.5 billion based on an average price between $5,000 and $6,000 per barrel of refining capacity in recent sales of U.S. refineries.

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The Lyondell refinery is well known to Saudi Aramco’s partner in Motiva, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Lyondell's refinery supplies dry gas to Shell's joint-venture refinery seven miles (11.25 km) east in Deer Park, Texas. Aramco and Shell announced plans in March to divide Motiva’s three refineries, distribution terminals and retail networks between them. Aramco is to keep the Motiva name.

It was unclear if the Lyondell refinery will remain with the post-breakup Motiva once the split takes place on April 1, 2017.

Negotiations on the final distribution of assets after the breakup were continuing as of last week, according to Motiva.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ly...-idUSKCN11B2DD

Saudi is giving back what it took. Aramco is named for "Arabian-American Oil Company". American investors and workers designed, engineered, developed, and owned in partnership Saudi's oil business. Then Saudi nationalized it. They kept Americans involved in the operations of it but not in the ownership. Saudi investment in our oil business here is really just a way to make that wrong right that occurred so many years ago. The new company to be offered through an IPO will be publicly traded and Americans can invest again in the massive wealth and industry their money, technology, skills and labor established.

We need massive amounts of all different types of energy to support our manufacturing renaissance. You can't have one without the other. Trump knows that which is why he focused so early on energy development, getting the pipelines approved, the coal industry going again and easing some regulations to make it easier to develop new energy producing operations.

Saudi oil giant takes full command of largest U.S. oil refinery, hopes for $2 TRILLION IPO

Americans should not stand by and do nothing while rich foreigners buy-up everything in the country including our irreplaceable natural resources.

Americans will own it through the IPO, they'll buy the stock through the IPO that will be traded on the New York Stock Exchange same as they own shares in Apple, Microsoft and Panera Bread.

Anyone in the world can buy the stock, not just Americans.

And the Saudis will take the IPO money home with them

just like the illegal aliens who send remittances back home

that you and everyone one else rightfully complains about.

Taking money out of the American economy is not good for America

no matter how you try to spin it.

Isn't that the same as for any company being traded on the NYSE, NASDAQ or any other stock, bond or commodities market in the US? And no it's not the same as illegal aliens sending remittances home. Illegal aliens aren't supposed to be here stealing money and then sending it back to their countries. To my knowledge, everything the Saudis are doing with their IPO is legal and the same as any other US-based company traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Did you not know that this refinery is presently owned by the Dutch and not American to begin with?