Seven candidates are in talks with Russian Lukoil to acquire its refinery in Bulgaria, Lukoil Neftochim Burgas, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov said on January 30 during a parliamentary hearing. He did not disclose their names.

Lukoil has been actively seeking to sell its Bulgarian assets since December 2023, when Sofia banned the import of Russian crude oil. The refinery is the biggest asset of the Russian company and is the largest in the Balkans.

According to Zhelyazkov, 24 bidders have shown interest in acquiring the refinery and Lukoil’s fuel stations in Bulgaria, but seven were shortlisted.

A day earlier, Bulgaria’s Magnitsky-sanctioned Delyan Peevski, leader of DPS – New Beginning, called for the acquisition of Lukoil’s local assets by the state. However, Zhelyazkov said the state was not on the list of bidders.

“The Bulgarian state is not on the list of potential buyers,” Zhelyazkov said.

He added that the state could enter the race if parliament orders the government to do that and if there is funding. He also said, however, that potential re-nationalisation of the refinery could be put on the table if “some reverse political logic follows the one that led to the privatisation”.

Lukoil will continue sale talks through February, the prime minister said. If the selected buyer is assessed by the state to be unstable, the state can block the sale.

So far, there is information about four possible candidates for the refinery and petrol stations, including Hungary’s MOL, Bulgarian businessman Plamen Bobokov, a Qatari-UK consortium comprising Oryx Global and DL Hudson, and Azerbaijani Socar. There were also reports that Kazakhstan’s state-owned KazMunayGas is bidding for the refinery.