PKN Orlen might buy additional 200 petrol stations in northern Germany to gain a 10% market share in the region, the company’s strategy director told the press yesterday. PKN Orlen currently has 7% market share in northern Germany, where it operates 527 petrol stations mostly under the Orlen and STAR brands. The CSO added that PKN strategy does not exclude exiting one day, but currently the company is not working on this scenario.
Our view: Although profit contribution of Orlen Deutschland was improving last quarters, it is still below that of the refinery assets. We believe that operating a retail network in Germany doesn’t fit to Orlen’s core strategy, however, we could also accept that PKN might quit easier after gaining further market share. The price of the network is quite uncertain, it depends on the ownership, the quality and the throughput of the wells. We would put this to the PLN 300-600m range, what is close to PKN’s current financing limits. We consider the news as slightly negative as we believe PKN should much more focus on its core refining business rather than buying non-core assets.