Trafigura-Entara Consortium to Buy French Refinery

Rhone Energies, a consortium of commodity trader Trafigura and Entara LLC, has agreed with ExxonMobil's ESSO SAF to buy the Fos-sur-Mer refinery and Toulouse and Villette-de-Vienne terminals in France.

"Discussions with the relevant authorities are ongoing and the necessary authorizations are expected by the end of October," Trafigura said in a press release on Thursday.

The parties signed the sale agreement having completed an information and consultation procedure with employee representatives, Trafigura said.

Trafigura said it would have a minimum 10-year exclusive crude oil supply and product offtake agreement for the 140,000 barrel per day (bpd) capacity Fos-sur-Mer refinery when it announced it was in talks to acquire the site in April.

Trafigura's partner in the deal, Entara LLC, is an energy infrastructure company that focuses on reducing carbon intensity of refining assets.

The deal to acquire the refinery is Trafigura's second major acquisition this year. It also completed the acquisition of UK road fuels and biofuel supplier Greenergy on Thursday.

The acquisition of the Fos-sur-Mer refinery follows a trend of trading firms picking up physical assets.

Trafigura also signed a long-term commercial agreement to supply crude and market products from the ISAB refinery on Sicily last year, when Russia's Lukoil sold it to private equity firm G.O.I. Energy.

Meanwhile, rival trader Vitol agreed to buy a controlling share of Saras, which operates the 300,000 bpd Sarroch refinery on Sardinia, earlier this year.

(Reuters - Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad and Sherin Elizabeth Varghese, Robert Harvey in London and Julia Payne in Brussels; editing by Jason Neely and David Evans)