Story ID: 019touchingbasesAINAug13EditedByAY_NM
AirBP Inks European Fuel Deal
By: Curt Epstein
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Word Count: 176
Aviation fuel supplier Air BP has signed an agreement with Poland’s Grupa Lotos to form a 50-50 joint-venture company to manage the supply, logistics and marketing of aviation fuel in the country. As part of the deal, Air BP has purchased half of Lotos Tank, Grupa Lotos’s aviation subsidiary. Initially the new company, known as Lotos-Air BP Poland, will operate at Gdansk, Warsaw and Krakow airports. 
  
“Poland is the country with the fastest growing aviation fuel sales in Europe, and we have found a strong, local partner with Lotos,” said Air BP CEO David Gilmour. His company expects to leverage its global customer supply relationships in the new venture while its Polish counterpart will add local expertise and supply capability. “The beginning of our cooperation with Air BP not only gives Lotos the possibility of competitive development in Poland, but also, and more important, it is a great opportunity for foreign expansion that we will surely use,” noted Maciej Szozda, Lotos group vice president of the management board and COO.