By ANDY HOFFMAN

Bloomberg

Gunvor Group, the Swiss commodity trader seeking to diversify from its Russian roots, confirmed it’s in final talks with Kuwait Petroleum to purchase the Europoort refinery in Rotterdam.

An agreement would see the 88,000-bpd plant continue to operate, the company said Thursday in a statement, without disclosing financial terms. Rival bidder HES International had planned to cut the site’s capacity and convert some to storage.

Independent oil traders such as Gunvor, one of the world’s five-largest, have been purchasing refineries, storage tanks, pipelines and other infrastructure assets to complement their trading operations. WhileEurope’s refineries are enjoying the highest margins in years after the oil-price slump cut feedstock costs, some older plants such as Europoort, built in 1962, have still struggled.

The planned acquisition, first reported last week, would give Gunvor a third European refinery alongside plants it controls in Ingolstadt, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium. The closely held company has been seeking asset deals in Europe, Asia, Africa and the US.

Gunvor has earned about $1.7 billion selling Russian assets, including the Ust-Luga product terminal, after its co-founder Gennady Timchenko was sanctioned by the US for his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Timchenko sold his 44% stake in the company, which has major trading operations in Geneva, Singapore and Dubai, to fellow co-founder and CEO Torbjorn Tornqvist the day before being sanctioned. Terms of that sale weren’t disclosed.

Gunvor beat out seven other interested parties for the Rotterdam refinery, including HES, a storage and logistics company backed by private-equity firms Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings.

Known as Q8 Europoort, the plant is the smallest in the Dutch port: its capacity trails Gunvor’s 110,000-bpd plant in Ingolstadt and the 107,500 bbl it can process in Antwerp. The Cyprus-registered company paid $150 million for Ingolstadt and $8 million for the Antwerp site, according to a 2013 bond prospectus.

Kuwait Petroleum acquired Q8 Europoort in 1983. It canceled plans last year to invest about $1 billion to upgrade the refinery and instead offered the plant for sale.