Essar Oil UK secures new long-term working capital facilities for Stanlow refinery

Essar Oil UK, a subsidiary of Essar Energy Limited, which owns and operates the Stanlow Refinery in Ellesmere Port, has agreed to new long term working capital facilities and has entered into arrangements for both inventory monetisation and receivables securitisation.
 
The inventory monetisation arrangement with J Aron and Company covers the supply of crude oil to Stanlow. Stanlow had a similar agreement with Barclays Bank Plc, which is now exiting the global commodities business.
 
"Under the new five-year deal, J Aron will provide inventory management services in relation to approximately 5.8 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products at Stanlow. Management of customer relationships and of product sales processes remain with Essar Oil UK," Essar Oil said in a press statement.

 

In addition, a previous invoice discounting receivables financing arrangement has been replaced with a new three year £300m ($475m equivalent) receivables securitisation arranged by Lloyds Bank Plc.
 
Essar Oil UK Chief Finance Officer, Sampath P, commented:  “I’m delighted we have the funding in place to plan for the long term growth of our business. The arrangements give both operational and planning flexibility and will help us continue to deliver an excellent level of service to our customers.”  
 
Volker Schultz, Essar Oil UK Chief Executive said: “Stanlow is running very successfully and competitively as a single train highly optimised refinery, while ongoing projects to further improve margins will see us making further significant investment to unlock even greater value.”

 
Stanlow Refinery is located near Liverpool and produces approximately 15% of UK transport fuels, including three billion litres of petrol, 3.5 billion litres of diesel and two billion litres of jet fuel per year.