Gunvor Sells Port Of Rotterdam Oil Storage Assets

by Toby Sterling (Reuters) Global Energy Storage, a new company that aims to store products such as hydrogen and biofuels, said on Thursday it is buying assets in Rotterdam from commodities firm Gunvor Group and will redevelop 20 hectares of land in the port for its operations.

Financial details of the purchase, which includes Gunvor’s stake in the port’s Stargate oil terminal, were not disclosed.

The company’s plan is to “take an existing oil terminal and develop it into a state-of-the-art low-carbon products terminal,” GES Chief Executive Peter Vucins said in a statement.

GES was formed in May with backing from London-based private equity firm Bluewater. A spokesperson for the company said it has up to $250 million to invest.

Gunvor acquired a significant amount of storage in Rotterdam, Europe’s deepest port and a hub for its oil trading, when it purchased the 88,000-barrel-per-day Rotterdam refinery from Kuwait Petroleum International in 2016.

It sold some storage capacity to Saudi Aramco in 2017 and had been looking to partially divest the 1.5 million cubic meters in oil storage it holds at Stargate since 2018, according to Reuters reports at the time.

Gunvor’s Global Head of Portfolio Shahb Richyal said the deal supported “the development of environmentally responsible projects in the port of Rotterdam”.

GES said on Thursday it will build a new jetty at the site, and plans to develop infrastructure for gas storage, gas-to-chemicals production, hydrogen storage, and ammonia storage.

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Jan Harvey, Reuters)

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