March 16, 2012:

CARACAS - Venezuela is selling its stake in a refinery project with Finland's Neste Oil that operates facilities in Sweden and Britain, the South American country's energy minister said in comments published on Friday.  Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and Neste Oil are 50-50 partners in Nynas AB, which runs four refineries with a combined capacity of 67,000 barrels per day.  They include Sweden's Nynaeshamn and Gothenburg facilities, which mostly use Venezuelan crude paraffin to make bitumen and naphthenic specialty products.  Caracas's El Mundo newspaper quoted Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez as saying in an interview that PDVSA was "in the process of liquidating the partnership."

"They do not value our Venezuelan crude fairly," he said, referring to the supply contracts for the facilities.  Ramirez did not give more details in the interview, and was not immediately available to comment on Friday.  In 2010, PDVSA sold its 50 percent stake in four Ruhr Oel refineries in Germany to Russia's Rosneft for $1.6 billion. Venezuela had long wanted to quit that project, saying it was unprofitable for PDVSA.  In addition to the Swedish refineries, Nynas AB also operates refineries in Dundee and Eastham in Britain.

By Reuters