BELGRADE (Serbia), December 13 (SeeNews) – Serbia's Tempo Gas, a unit of Bulgarian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) trader Kalvacha, hopes to start building petrol stations in Serbia and Montenegro next year for EKO-ELDA, part of Greece's Hellenic Petroleum Group, the head of Tempo Gas said.
Tempo Gas also hopes to start building LPG filling stations in Serbia for Russian major Lukoil in 2008, Tempo Gas director Diliana Ivanova told SeeNews in an interview.
“A contract with Lukoil will be probably signed next week,” Ivanova said.
Tempo Gas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kalvacha (www.kalvacha.bg), expects to be chosen by EKO-ELDA to build more than 20 petrol stations for the Greek group in Serbia and Montenegro.
Tempo Gas has built 272 LPG filling stations in Serbia in the last four years. “This is more than 70% market share in the country,” said Ivanova.
“The construction of a single petrol station costs between 0.5 and 1.5 million euro ($0.7-2.2 million). It all depends on the size of the station and on other specifications. The price varies for each petrol station.”
The construction of an LPG filling station costs much cheaper, 20,000 to 30,000 euro depending on the size and equipment, she added.
Lukoil bought 79.5% of Serbian fuel retailer Beopetrol for 17 million euro in 2003. Now, Lukoil Beopetrol is the biggest rival of Serbia's state-owned oil company NIS.
“Lukoil bought a large network of Beopetrol's petrol stations but only few of them have propane filling installations,” Ivanova said.
In Montenegro, Tempo Gas has built 10 LPG stations and has contracts to build gas heating installations in schools.
“We've signed contracts with the first four schools, and as this is a government-funded project, we hope there will be more schools,” said Ivanova.
“We have all the licences and permits needed for Croatia and we have already sold two propane filling stations there this month,” Ivanova said.
In Bulgaria, Tempo Gas has built 50 petrol stations for local fuel retailer Petrol so far this year.
“We hope to sign with them a similar contract for the same amount next year,” Ivanova said but declined to disclose the value of the completed contract.
Tempo Gas has also built the first petrol stations of Dutch-based oil group Rompetrol in Bulgaria. The Rompetrol Group is 75%-owned by Kazahkstan's KazMunayGas. Its key asset is Rompetrol Rafinare, the second-largest oil company in Romania in terms of refining capacity.
“Rompetrol has plans for Bulgaria and Serbia for the next year and we expect to be the partner they will choose,” Ivanova said.
($=0.6809 euro)