AFP, Mohammedia :
Three years after it was liquidated for racking up billions of euros worth of debt, Morocco’s sole oil refinery and one-time economic flagship is struggling to attract a buyer and survive.
A self-declared “national front” – comprising employees, economists and union leaders – is leading the charge to salvage refining company SAMIR, while a trade court desperately seeks a new owner.
They face a tough battle, including a court deadline of July 18 to seal the refinery’s fate.
The firm was liquidated in 2016 after it was unable to honour some four billion euros ($4.5 billion at current prices) in borrowing.
The refinery was set up in 1959 by the Moroccan government and sold in 1997 to the Corral group, a Saudi-Swedish enterprise that holds a majority stake of more than 67 percent.
Work at the refinery, which had a capacity of more than 150,000 barrels a day, had already wound down a year before it was dissolved.
But nearly 800 employees remain on the payroll, albeit on slashed salaries scratched together from company coffers and creditors. The workers’ fate now hangs in the balance, according to staff representative Houcine El Yamani, who has spearheaded efforts by the “national front” to salvage the facility.
“We have made tremendous efforts” to pressure the state into reviving SAMIR since work stopped in 2015 at the plant in Mohammedia, between Rabat and the economic hub Casablanca, El Yamani said.
Three years after it was liquidated for racking up billions of euros worth of debt, Morocco’s sole oil refinery and one-time economic flagship is struggling to attract a buyer and survive.
A self-declared “national front” – comprising employees, economists and union leaders – is leading the charge to salvage refining company SAMIR, while a trade court desperately seeks a new owner.
They face a tough battle, including a court deadline of July 18 to seal the refinery’s fate.
The firm was liquidated in 2016 after it was unable to honour some four billion euros ($4.5 billion at current prices) in borrowing.
The refinery was set up in 1959 by the Moroccan government and sold in 1997 to the Corral group, a Saudi-Swedish enterprise that holds a majority stake of more than 67 percent.
Work at the refinery, which had a capacity of more than 150,000 barrels a day, had already wound down a year before it was dissolved.
But nearly 800 employees remain on the payroll, albeit on slashed salaries scratched together from company coffers and creditors. The workers’ fate now hangs in the balance, according to staff representative Houcine El Yamani, who has spearheaded efforts by the “national front” to salvage the facility.
“We have made tremendous efforts” to pressure the state into reviving SAMIR since work stopped in 2015 at the plant in Mohammedia, between Rabat and the economic hub Casablanca, El Yamani said.
