Turkey’s Kurum gets Cerrik refinery concession

TIRANA, July 9 – Turkey’s Kurum has been announced the winner of a rehabilitate-operate-transfer (ROT) concession for the Cerrik oil refiner, one of the country’s eldest built during the Italian occupation during WWII. In an announcement published on the Public Procurement Agency, the Ministry of Energy says Kurum has been announced the winner of an international tender held on March 15, 2013, bidding 6.7 billion lek (Euro 58 million VAT included) for the refinery which has not been in operation during the past ten years. The Procurement Agency does not reveal how many years Kurum will use the refinery under the ROT concession but says Kurum will have to rehabilitate the site in 18 months once the contract has been signed.
The refinery’s processing capacity is 500,000 tonnes.
Kurum will have to pay Euro 2 million in concession fee and Euro 1 million to the contracting authority.
Kurum beat an Albanian consortium which had been awarded a bonus for its unsolicited offer.
Turkey’s Kurum which already operates the Elbasan steel plant has recently also acquired four small and medium sized hydropower plants for Euro 110 million. For Kurum, one of the country’s largest electricity consumers, the purchase of the HPPs will considerably lower its power costs as a new law in force since the beginning of 2012 stripped big electricity consumers to have power supply at regulated tariffs from the local distribution operator.