MOSCOW, May 30 (Reuters) - Russia's Mariysky refinery, whichhas been closed for around a year due to financial problems,could restart production in June after a change in ownership,industry sources told Reuters on Friday.
The sources said there were two contenders for the plant,including Antipinsky refinery and "people who made money inretail business".
An industry source also said the plant had bought more than100,000 tonnes of crude oil, possibly from Shell's Russian Salym venture with Gazprom Neft.
VTB, Salym and Shell declined to comment.
The ownership of Mariysky refinery, located in Russia'sVolga region, was transferred to Russia's VTB bank inNovember due to unpaid arrears.
The bank put the refinery, which has capacity of around28,000 barrels per day, up for sale, valuing it at 6.1 billionroubles ($173 million).
Industry sources said the refinery's management had carriedout the necessary preparations to restart the plant next month.It could buy some 40,000 tonnes (290,000 barrels) of crude oilto process it next month.
Last year, the plant shipped 436,000 tonnes (8,700 barrelsper day) of oil products, according to railway data.
Mariysky refinery is a relatively new oil processing plant,built in the late 1990s. It mainly produces fuel oil and heatingoil. ($1 = 34.6695 Russian Roubles) (Reporting by Lyudmila Zaramenskikh and Anna Pak; writing byVladimir Soldatkin, editing by Elizabeth Piper)
