Petroplus Holdings AG (SWX: PPHN) today announced that Peter
Backhouse, N. John Lancaster and Baran Tekkora have resigned from
Petroplus's Board of Directors. Mr. Backhouse has served on the board
since November 2006 and was a member of the Nominating and Corporate
Governance Committee of Petroplus. Mr. Backhouse has also served as a
member of the advisory board of Carlyle/Riverstone Global Energy and
Power Funds. Mr. Lancaster has served on the board since August 2006
and was a member of the Compensation Committee of Petroplus. Mr.
Lancaster is a managing director of Riverstone Holdings LLC
("Riverstone"). Mr. Tekkora has served on the board since November of
2006 and was a member of the Audit Committee of Petroplus. Mr. Tekkora
is a principal of Riverstone. Petroplus Holdings AG intends to
nominate new board members for election by the shareholders at the
Annual General Meeting.
RIVR has notified Petroplus that it has completed the sale of its
remaining 12.8 million shares, or 21% stake, of Petroplus. After the
sale by RIVR, Petroplus's free float, including shares held by senior
management, is essentially 100% free float.
Petroplus Holdings AG is one of the largest independent refiners
and wholesalers of petroleum products in Europe. Petroplus focuses on
refining and currently owns and operates three refineries across
Europe: the Cressier refinery in the canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland,
the Teesside refinery in Teesside, United Kingdom and the Belgium
Refining Company ("BRC") refinery in Antwerp, Belgium. Petroplus has
entered into an agreement with ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH
("ExxonMobil CE") to purchase a refinery in Ingolstadt, Germany and
with BP PLC to purchase the Coryton Refinery in the United Kingdom.
The existing refineries have a combined crude oil volume processing
capacity, known as throughput capacity, of approximately 295,000 bpd,
and the Ingolstadt refinery has a throughput capacity of approximately
110,000 bpd. The Coryton Refinery has a total nameplate crude capacity
of approximately of 172,000 barrels per day and up to an additional
70,000 barrels per day of other feedstocks.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including
the company's current expectations with respect to future market
conditions, future operating results, the future performance of its
refinery operations, and other plans. Words such as "expects,"
"intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates," "may,"
"will," "should," "shall," and similar expressions typically identify
such forward-looking statements. Even though Petroplus believes the
expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on
reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations
will be attained. Factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from expectations include, but are not limited to,
operational difficulties, varying market conditions, potential changes
in gasoline, crude oil, distillate, and other commodity prices,
government regulations, and other factors contained from time to time
in the Petroplus's annual and interim reports.
