Gazprom Neft's NIS to Buy 60 Filling Stations in Romania

Serbian oil and gas company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), majority owned by Russian Gazprom Neft, is said to be in talks to buy 60 filling stations in Romania.

NIS is one step away from acquiring 60 sites of OMV Petrom after last week it announced it had purchased OMV's 28 filling stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to reports of Romanian newspaper Adevarul, as cited by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA).

In July 2012, the Serbian company said it planned to buy 40 filling stations in Romania by end-2012, reaching a total of 120 sites by end-2014.

Gazprom Neft's subsidiary NIS recently bought three filling stations from a Romanian businessman, according to Adevarul.

The Romanian newspaper notes that a network of 63 filling stations in Romania will make Gazprom the owner of one of the largest chains after Petrom (550 filling stations at present), Rompetrol (450), Lukoil (300), and MOL (133).

On the local market, NIS will outpace the Agip chain of filling stations by 37 sites.

Serbian NIS has been on the retail fuel market in Bulgaria for a year and the company already owns 30 filling stations and a fuel depot in the western town of Kostinbrod.

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