The Czech-Slovak financial group Penta expressed interest in the government’s privatization of Unipetrol, the Czech Press Agency reported on Friday. Reportedly as many as ten companies had officially expressed their interest in Unipetrol by Friday, MOL and PKN Orlen (which have teamed-up with Czech Agrofert), among those said to have declared interest was Agip/ENI and one member of the IOC consortium (IOC owns 49% of Ceska rafinerska, of which 51% is held by Unipetrol; IOC is a consortium of Agip, Shell, and Conoco, Conoco-Phillips is reportedly the interested member). Participation in the tender is also reportedly being considered by Yukos and TNK of Russia.
Jiří Soustružník