Saudi Investments - Corral Petroleum Holdings (CPH).

This is a Swedish-registered company in which Shaikh Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, of a prominent Jeddah-based merchant family, has a controlling interest. Corral's CEO is Ghazi Habib, a former director at Samarec who left after the company merged with Saudi Aramco. Corral is the biggest Saudi private downstream operator overseas.

CPH in the first quarter of 1999 assumed control over the oil refining and retail businesses in Morocco. This was done through a merger of the country's two oil refining companies in which Corral had held the majority since May 1997: Societe Anonyme Marocaine de l'Industrie de Raffinage (Samir) and Societe Cherifienne de Petroles (SCP).

CPH's local unit, Corral Holdings Morocco (CHM) merged Samir and SCP so that their resources were pooled together to gain economies of scale and help CHM prepare a $500m programme for expansion. This will include an upgrade of the two refineries, as gasoline specifications in Morocco are to be changed by 2003. CHM is to increase their retail networks, now under a common system.

CHM's LPG retail network in Morocco is being expanded through a merger agreed in October 1998 with Tayssir Primagaz, Azizgaz and Elf Intergaz. The merged entity now has 85% of the LPG market and is to invest in new plant and equipment for gas bottling centres in order to meet the growth in domestic demand. Previously CHM had 10 LPG filling units accounting for 40% of the filling sector but only 5% of the LPG market.

Corral's first major deal was on March 16, 1994, when it acquired Stockholm-based OK Petroleum AB (OKP) for $738m. In July 1994 OKP bought Sweden's 400 Texaco petrol stations, representing a 7% share of the market. The total deal was worth around $1.2 bn. As from mid-1996, OKP has been renamed Preem Petroleum. (Nimir had initially wanted to buy OKP but decided against it. Then Al Amoudi hired Nimir as a management consultant prior to buying OKP. Nimir undertook the negotiation and acquisition of OKP, on behalf of Corral. Nimir now has a management consultancy agreement with Preem). Preem is the biggest refiner in Scandinavia with a capacity of 300,000 b/d, in two refineries: the 200,000 b/d Scanraff plant, jointly owned with Norsk Hydro, and the 100,000 b/d Preem refinery. A $200m upgrade is being carried out at the latter refinery. Preem Petroleum also has extensive storage facilities. (At the time of the purchase, OKP was the biggest refiner in Scandinavia with a capacity of 265,000 b/d, 23% of the Nordic total. It was the 22nd biggest company in the European market). Preem has E&P concessions in three North Sea fields, in the Baltic and in Angola. In January 1995, it acquired Polish oil company Va-Po, which owns a storage facility in Poznan and 20 retail outlets. Currently, Corral owns some 500 retail outlets under the Preem brand name. In 1996, Preem had a turnover of more than $2.5 bn. In addition to Preem, Corral also owns Svenska Petroleum and Exploration, which produces 18,000 b/d of crude oil and has annual sales totalling around $160m.

In July 1995, Corral teamed up with Dubai-based Gulf Interstate to take a 15% share in refined product retailer Fortuna of Lebanon, at a cost of $50m. Corral's share has since been raised to 70% and Gulf Interstate is out of the venture. Fortuna has two operating subsidiaries: Coral Oil and Speed Oil. It operates 150 retail outlets in Lebanon, with sales in 1996 estimated at $105m, representing 2.2m barrels of refined products. (In June 1995 Shaikh Amoudi signed an agreement with the Al Mawarid Group of Saudi Arabia to buy its Naft Services Co., which has the largest chain of petrol stations in Saudi Arabia. Naft's operations are concentrated around Jeddah, Riyadh and Al Khobar).