CAPITAL: Helsinki
MONETARY UNIT: Markka
REFINING CAPACITY: 200,000 b/cd
OIL PRODUCTION: 0
OIL RESERVES: 0
GAS RESERVES: 0
Finland`s Fortum Corp. changed the names of its units Neste Oy and Imatran Voima to Fortum Oil & Gas Oy and Fortum Power & Heat Oy, respectively.
Fortum Oy sold 50% of Gasum Oy, its 75-25 gas supply joint venture with Russia`s Gazprom, for $300 million to German gas distributor Ruhrgas AG, a consortium of Finnish industrial conglomerates, and the Finnish state.
Afterwards, Gasum owners were Fortum and Gazprom with 25% each, the Finland government 24%, Ruhrgas 20%, and Mets-Serla Corp., Stora Enso Oyj, and UPM-Kymmene Corp. 2% each.
The European Commission made the sale a condition for its approval of the merger of state oil firm Neste Oy and Imatran electric firm Voima Oy to create Fortum.
GASum imported 3.9 billion cu m of Russian gas in 1998 for sale in Finland.
It operated 900 km of pipelines serving customers in southern Finland and planned to build lines to sell gas in the Baltic states and Scandinavia.
Meanwhile, Fortum and Norway`s state oil company Statoil created a joint venture to combine all Neste and Statoil retail and wholesale marketing operations and oil terminals in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia effective Jan. 1, 2000.
The new company became the Baltic Rim`s market leader. It did not include the Neste retail network in Finland or Statoil`s retail networks in Scandinavia and Ireland
