Ipic, the owner of Cepsa, has begun negotiations with the British firm Glencore about creating a new company that will serve to centralize petroleum buying. According to sources consulted by elEconomista, the talks between both parties are in the initial stages at this time. Therefore it is still early to determine the repercussions of a decision to do so with member companies of the Abu Dhabi fund (Cepsa, OMV, Cosmo Oil or Borealis) or calculate the economic scale.
In the initial project design, an attempt to move some operators to the centrally-located Glencore in London was done to centralize buying within the newly-formed alliance.
Sources say that the negotiations have been carried out at a time when management from Cepsa has not participated actively. In fact, this major petroleum company declined to offer any comments when consulted about the matter.
The second major petroleum company in Spain would just continue to centrally manage long-term products contracts and current fleet, considering that the rest of its business would go to the newly-formed collective, including surplus sales to Spanish refineries.
Abu Dhabi assured in the report on the purchase of Cepsa that it did not intend to modify the location of any activity center and its group within the next twelve months. So changes should be minor and have negligible effects on payrolls. Amidst this ongoing contract, the group also reaffirmed that it does not want to take the pocket book away from Cepsa nor strip them of shares, nor go through with any restructuring deals.
