Rabat – SAMIR’s new owners will have to restart production as soon as they acquire the defunct facility, according to Mohamed El-Krimi, the oil refinery’s court-appointed trustee told Reuters on Monday.
El-Krimi added that he would be sending invitations to investors to submit offers to purchase SAMIR. The site stopped refining oil in August 2015 due to “financial constraints” but a court has since put the facility in liquidation.
“Once we finish evaluating the company’s assets, and once the judge in charge validates the results, we will launch the process,” the trustee said
Morocco’s sole refinery had been scheduled for a three-month production restart beginning in June in order to secure a higher price for the site, though it appears the plan fell through.
The Casablanca court overseeing SAMIR’s sale has set a December 21st deadline for the refinery’s new managing team to reestablish the 200,000- barrel per day production rate in place before the financial interruptions from last year occurred.
“The court may extend the deadline if needed, but it is too early to know,” El-Krimi said.
So far, SAMIR’s managers have struggled to secure crude oil supply contracts, making it difficult to sustainably restart refining oil in the kingdom.
Sources close to the matter told Reuters that the plant’s 1,200 workers still received the full salaries owed to them as well as associated benefits.
Saudi Arabian billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi’s company Corral Holdings holds a two-thirds stake in SAMIR, which owes the government MAD 13 billion in unpaid taxes, according to the Moroccan government.
