Commercial court repeals state authorization to exploit SAMIR petroleum tanks

The Commercial Court of Casablanca repealed the authorization given to the Moroccan state to rent the tanks of the unknown Moroccan Company for Industry and Refining, known by the acronym “SAMIR,” on Tuesday.

Othmani’s cabinet submitted, in May last year, an urgent request to the SAMIR judicial liquidation syndicate, through the Kingdom’s judicial agent, to store pure petroleum materials in “SAMIR” tanks in order to enhance national oil stock.

After receiving the requested authorization in a short time, the government quit the petroleum stocking project that presented a big hope to the in debt company to avoid liquidation.

The Unified Union Office of the Democratic Confederation of Labor in “SAMIR” demands compensation for the damage caused by this decline, which cost the company a loss of more than MAD 1.7 billion, according to their statement.

The Petroleum Refining Company has been suspended since 2015 due to the accumulation of its debts under the leadership of its former owner, Saudi-Ethiopian businessman Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi.

The government has said, at the time, SAMIR’s total debt is hovering around MAD 44 billion.

Its bank accounts were frozen when the refinery was shut down in pursuit of the tax claims.

With an absent lease agreement between the company and the government, the court ruled this month to complete the liquidation process of the financially struggling company.

The Unified Union Office of the Democratic Confederation of Labor in the SAMIR Company said they were surprised by the Moroccan government’s retreat from its commitment to the company, especially that “the revival SAMIR will contribute to raising the national petroleum energy reserve, and will destabilize the understandings and the blatant control of fuel prices in Morocco, in light of the signs of the global energy crisis and the resort to strategic reserves,” said the union.

SAMIR’s union has written to Akhannouch’s cabinet, to save the refinery and protect the rights of the company workers, asking for its intervention to restart SAMIR’s activities according to all the formulas provided by Moroccan law.