BOGOTA, Colombia (AP):

Glencore International AG has won the bid for a majority stake in a company that will expand and operate Colombia's second-largest oil refinery.

Glencore, headquartered in Switzerland, offered to pay US$630.7 million (€494.2 million) for a 51 per cent stake in the new company, beating out the only other bid of US$595 million (€466.2 million) by Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras.

The Swiss-based company with worldwide interests in metals, minerals and energy, has investments in Jamaica having bought the 65 per cent stake in bauxite/alumina producers Alpart formerly owned by Kaiser.

Finance expansion

Glencore will end up paying US$656.4 million (€514.7 million), which the government has determined the stake is worth, Colombia's presidency said in a statement.

Glencore's investment will help finance the US$800 million (€627 million) expansion of the Cartagena refinery, said Ecopetrol Vice President for Refining Federico Maya.

The refinery is currently owned entirely by Ecopetrol, a state-run company.

Ecopetrol will retain the other 49 per cent of the company, Maya said.

The expansion will nearly double the refinery's processing capacity to 140,000 barrels per day, and should be operating by the first half of 2010.

The upgrade is seen as critical to reducing Colombia's reliance on importing oil derivatives.

Oil is Colombia's largest legal export, accounting for about 25 per cent of all sales abroad.