Spain’s Cepsa has purchased a 20% stake in Cosmo Oil’s Abu Dhabi upstream assets for about $217mn. While once almost entirely focused on refining, marketing and distribution of refined products in Spain, Cepsa was fully taken over by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) in 2011 and has since developed into an international investment vehicle for its parent.
IPIC also directly owns a 20.8% stake in Japan’s Cosmo Oil, which – like Cepsa – is primarily a downstream firm in its home country. But Cosmo says it has diversified its portfolio in light of a difficult market in Japan, where oil product demand is on the decline – leading Cosmo to close one of its refineries. (CONTINUED - 334 WORDS)
