BP Plc (BP/) may get 200 million to 400 million euros ($456 million) for a Dutch oil-storage terminal it plans to sell, according to an analyst at ING Groep NV.
Europe’s third-largest oil company, seeking to sell assets and cut jobs amid falling oil prices, plans to sell the terminal with a capacity of 950,000 cubic meters, London-based BP said.
“It is in the long term interests of the Amsterdam Terminal and its staff for it to be owned by an entity which is better placed to invest in its future,” Hendrik Muilerman, BP’s Netherlands managing director, said.
Robert Wine, a BP spokesman in London, declined to say how much the company expects to raise as it’s only just starting to market the facility.
The site’s value depends on what is being stored, how much maintenance has been carried out and how old it is, said Quirijn Mulder, an analyst at ING Wholesale Banking in Amsterdam.
It may be worth 200 euros to 400 euros a cubic meter, he said by phone, or almost 200 million to 400 million euros in total.
Interest in storage is growing due to a so-called contango in the oil market where future prices are higher than current ones, providing an incentive to buy oil now, store it and sell at a later date.
Trading houses are poised to profit from storing oil and petroleum products to sell in the future.
The terminal, which supplies gasoline and diesel to local and regional petrol stations, has been owned and operated by BP since 1997.
It has 70 storage tanks, and services 2,900 ships and 20,000 road tankers a year. Royal Vopak NV has storage of about 1.2 million cubic meters in the Amsterdam area and Oiltanking GmbH has 1.6 million cubic metres.
For more oil and gas stories click here.
