Mercuria in Talks to Sell Stake, Sees $90 Oil Price Floor

Mercuria Energy Trading SA is still in discussions to sell a 10 to 20 percent stake in the company this year amid more stable oil prices, according to the
company’s chief executive officer.

“We will probably have some news in the next six months,” Marco Dunand, the company’s CEO and co-founder, said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today. “For us, it will be more a year of consolidation than expansion.”

The Geneva-based company’s revenue rose to $100 billion last year, Dunand said. That’s up from $76 billion in 2011. The CEO said in April last year that Mercuria was in early talks with potential investors to sell a stake of as much as 20 percent as it diversifies into non-energy commodity markets and enlarges operations in China and elsewhere.

Oil markets will maintain “a certain stability with last year” even as prices may be “marginally lower,” he said today. Crude probably won’t drop below a range of $90 to $100 a barrel because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would cut production to stop prices from falling, Dunand said.

Brent crude was little changed at $113.34 a barrel as of 5:46 p.m. today in London on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. The North Sea grade, which is used as a benchmark for more than half of the world’s crude, gained 3.5 percent last year.