The Russian oil and gas company Lukoil has completed the sale of its 320 kb/d ISAB oil refinery, located in Sicily (Italy), to the Cypriot private equity firm GOI Energy. In January 2023, Lukoil had agreed to sale the refinery to GOI Energy, which had formed a partnership with the commodity trading company Trafigura to provide financing and handle crude oil supplies and refined products output. The Italian authorities had approved the transaction under certain conditions in early April 2023, namely employment protection, maintenance of production levels, the presence of a purifier for the plant and the traceability of the oil supply.
Lukoil had acquired 49% of the refinery from ERG in 2008 before raising its stakes to 100%. The refinery has relied solely on Russian oil since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as banks stopped financing it and providing the guarantees to buy oil from other sources. In December 2022 the Italian government had placed the ISAB refinery under temporary trusteeship to ensure the facility would continue operating despite the upcoming embargo on Russian seaborne oil, which started on 5 December 2022.
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