Turkish privatisation agency OIB said it had received nine bids for the purchase of a 51 per cent stake in state oil refiner Tupras.

The bids ranged from a consortium that included the world’s third-largest oil company, Shell, as well as several from companies based in western and central Europe, Turkey and India.
The head of the OIB, Metin Kilci, said in July that Turkey had received 12 pre-qualification bids in the Tupras sale, which is a key plank of Ankara’s IMF-backed privatisation programme.
OIB officials said the bidders would be invited to hold “one-to-one and face-to-face” talks, and they would be asked to revise their bids upwards.
The sale process will culminate in an open auction, the officials said.
They declined to give a definite date for the completion of the process, but one official said the sale could be finished “in a short time, and probably within this month.”
Workers suspended work in four Tupras refineries to protest the privatisation, saying the refinery was too strategic to be sold.
Tupras employs 3,741 permanent and 200 temporary workers.
The nine bidders are as follows: Turkey’s OYAK; Austrian OMV; Italy’s ENI; Turkey’s Anadolu Tasima Joint Initiative Group; Hungarian oil and gas company MOL; Poland’s PKN Orlen SA /Zorlu Holding; Koc Holding /Aygaz/Opet Petrolculuk/The Shell Company of Turkey/Shell Overseas Investment BV; Indian Oil Corp/Calik Enerji and Tupras Acquisition Consortium/Petrol Ofisi.