TIRANA, Nov. 10 – Albania’s ARMO refiner in the southern town of Ballsh has resumed work after more than one year, providing a solution to more than 1,000 workers who had remained jobless.
An offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands has reactivated domestic oil refining following a deal with Canada-based Bankers Petroleum, the country’s largest oil producer recently acquired by a Chinese company.
“This refinery has a painful story, a failed privatization and one of the challenges was to reactivate this plant, above all to employ the people and keep this strategic asset operating,” says Energy Minister Damian Gjiknuri.
The plant is now producing Eurodiesel, super unleaded petrol and other oil by-products.
Ionian Refining and Trading Co. – IRTC SH.A., a newly established offshore in March 2016 at the British Virgin Islands and also registered as a joint stock company with Albania’s National Business Center has reactivated the Fier and Ballsh refineries under Armo refiner’s possession with oil deliveries from the country’s biggest oil producer scheduled October 2016 through December 2017.
Hundreds of oil workers from the bankrupt ARMO refiner in southern Albanian town of Ballsh staged protests in Tirana this year, calling on the government to find a solution to the resumption of oil operations so that they can make a living in their poor town where the refiner has been the top employer over the past decades.
The bankruptcy of Albania’s oil refiner ARMO and its stop of operations has led to an increase in fuel imports this year, when Albania met almost all of its domestic consumption with imports.
Last February, a Tirana-based private bailiff failed to sell several key assets by ARMO oil refiner whose minority 15 percent stake is still held by the Albanian government following its botched privatization back in 2008. The company’s auction came more than two years after an Azerbaijani-based company took over the majority 80 percent stake in ARMO and the company’s continued accumulation of debts to creditors and the government in unpaid taxes.
The refiner was privatized in 2008 when a consortium led-by Albanian businessman Rezart Taà§i’s Anika Enterprises bought an 85 percent stake in ARMO oil refiner for €128 million. The deal was financed by the Azerbaijani state bank.
ARMO’s assets include two refineries in Ballsh and Fier and one thermal power plant, built in the 1970s under communism.
