Gulbenkian sells Partex to Thai oil company for $622M

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation signed off the sale agreement of Partex to PTT Exportation and Production (PTTEP), a Thai state-owned oil company. The deal amounted to $622M. The agreement was signed this morning by the President of the Foundation, Isabel Mota, and the PTTEP’s CEO, Phongsthorn Thavisin, for 556.6M€, a slightly higher bid that the 500M€ the Foundation was asking for.

After terminating the unsuccessful negotiations held with the Chinese CEFC in April last year, the President of Partex, António Costa Silva, said this February to Jornal de Negócios that he was negotiating with potential buyers. The negotiations with CEFC terminated before a deal was reached because of the involvement of CEFC’s CEO in quarrels with the Chinese judiciary system.

The President of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation considers this a “strategic” sale given the “new energetic matrix” and the need for “coherence” with the Foundation’s beliefs. In February 2018, Isabel Mota explained to Expresso that defending environmental sustainability would mean “leaving sooner or later the fossil fuel operations.