AUGUST 2, 2011
By ALEXIS FLYNN
Essar Energy Monday completed a deal to buy the U.K’s second-biggest refinery at Stanlow, in Northwest England, from Royal Dutch Shell PLC, marking another step in a changing of the guard for the European refining sector as the fully integrated oil majors sell out to a new coterie of owners.
Essar Energy, a subsidiary of the giant Mumbai-based Essar conglomerate owned by Shashi and Ravi Ruia, paid Shell $350 million for what Essar Energy’s Chief Executive Naresh Nayyar says is a valuable, strategically positioned asset that gives the company an outlet to export surplus products made by its giant refinery at Vadinar in the Indian state of Gujurat.