June 2, 2026 12:29

The European Commission has approved Klesch Group’s acquisition of BP’s refinery and petrochemicals complex in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
The transaction was announced in March (read here).

Brussels concluded that the notified transaction would not raise competition concerns, given the companies’ limited combined market position after the proposed transaction and their respective market positions.

According to German press reports, with Spiegel cited by Reuters, the transaction is also being reviewed by the German authorities, in particular the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs.

The Gelsenkirchen complex includes two crackers with capacity of around one million tonnes per year of ethylene and approximately 645,000 t/y of propylene, as well as downstream plants producing around fifty products, including aromatics such as benzene, xylenes and toluene.

Klesch Group is an independent oil refiner founded and chaired by entrepreneur A. Gary Klesch. It already owns the Heide refinery in Germany, acquired from Shell in 2010, and the Kalundborg refinery in Denmark, acquired from Equinor, with the transfer completed at the end of 2021.
With Gelsenkirchen, however, it would acquire petrochemical assets, which it does not currently have.

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