The group, through its lubricants making unit Prista Oil Holding, signed a deal in August with Hong Kong-headquartered supplier of marine lubricants for the international shipping industry Gulf Oil Marine, part of the Gulf Oil International Group, to make and distribute marine lubricants in Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania and Turkey and to 700 ports in over 50 countries, part of the Sealub Alliance Network, Prista Oil said in a statement.
"Prista Oil Holding's setting foot in the Sealub Alliance partnership assocation is maybe one of the biggest strategic moves made by our company," Prista Oil Holding's board chairman Plamen Bobokov said in the statement.
"The partnership with Prista Oil in marine lubricants in the strategic Black Sea region gives the Sealub Alliance clients an exceptionally wide geographic coverage through which high-tech marine lubricants and technical services are provided to the vessels," Gulf Oil Marine CEO Caroline Huot said in the same statement.
The Sealub Alliance, founded in 2008 by Gulf Oil Marine (www.gulf-oil-marine.com), is a network for the global delivery of marine lubricants. Members of the alliance currently serve more than 450 ports in over 40 countries. By the end of 2009, the Sealub Alliance plans to deliver marine lubricants and services to over 750 ports in 60 countries.
Bobokov told SeeNews in an interview last year that Prista Oil was planning to invest at least 100 million euro ($145.8 million) in production, distribution and marketing of lubricants within three years under its expansion plans, seeking to become a leading player on the European market.
The Prista Oil Group produces car batteries through its blue-chip unit MonBat and lubricants through its Prista Oil Holding company. Currently Prista Oil (www.prista-oil.com) has a network of four base oil storage and shipping terminals with a combined capacity of 52,000 cubic metres – two terminals in Korfez, Turkey; one in Odessa, Ukraine, and one in Varna, on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. It has three plants - two in Bulgaria and one in Turkey, and co-operates with Belgrade-based Rafinerija Nafte.
The group, wich has developed business operations in 20 countries in the past 13 years, bought in June this year its Hungarian peer Bogdany Petrol. It has strategic partnerships with leading chemical groups incuding Chevron, ERGON, Ashland and GreenСhem.
Prista Oil sold 178,000 tonnes of lubricants last year.
