Gunvor, SOCAR neck and neck to buy refiner Italiana Petroli, sources say

By Francesca Landini and Valentina Za

MILAN (Reuters) - Global commodity trader Gunvor and State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) are neck and neck in the race to buy oil refiner Italiana Petroli, three sources close to the matter said on Friday, as an end-May deadline to submit final offers looms.

Abu Dhabi-based Bin Butti Group is also expected to submit a bid, but its chances to acquire the privately-owned Italian company are considered slimmer as it joined the sale process only recently and has had less time to study the refiner, the sources said.

Two of the sources said the seller, the Brachetti Peretti family, was seeking a valuation of around 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) for 100% of the group, which last year posted an adjusted core profit of nearly 500 million euros and had net cash of 408 million euros at end-December.

Gunvor and Italiana Petroli declined to comment. SOCAR and Bin Butti were not Noavailable to comment.

Italiana Petroli's sale comes after commodity trading house Vitol last year bought Italian oil refiner Saras from the Moratti family, highlighting private investors' desire to withdraw from an increasingly volatile business area.

IP, which is being advised by UniCredit, has a total refining capacity of around 200,000 barrels per day. It also has a network of 4,600 fuel stations.

The group increased its refining and fuel storage capacity in late 2023 when it finalised the acquisition of Exxon Mobil's Italian assets.

IP currently owns a refinery in Ancona, eastern Italy; the SARPOM refinery in Trecate in the north; and has a tolling contract for the Alma refinery in Ravenna, towards the north east.

Trecate deals with the production of different kinds of fuel, including aviation propellant, while the other two plants produce bitumen.

The sources said both SOCAR and Gunvor had conducted in-depth analyses of the company and visited IP's industrial sites to prepare their final offers.

SOCAR is being advised by Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo IMI CIB. Rothschild is working with Gunvor.

($1 = 0.8819 euros)

(Additional reporting by Robert Harvey and Nailia Bagirova. Editing by Mark Potter)