Croat oil group INA to sell its small retailer

ZAGREB Nov 12 (Reuters) - Croatia's oil group INA INA.ZA (HINAq.L) put its small fuel retailer up for sale on Thursday following an order by the country's anti-trust agency.

In June, the agency gave INA nine months to launch the sale of 14 petrol stations owned by its small retail firm Crobenz.

INA's biggest shareholder, Hungary's MOL MOLB.BU, would otherwise have too big a market share, the agency said.

"To demonstrate interest in the transaction process, a letter of intent is to be submitted (to INA) by potential purchasers until the end of the working hours on Nov. 20," INA said in a statement.

The price of Crobenz has not been made public.

Besides a 47-percent stake in INA, MOL also recently acquired another smaller Croatian fuel retailer, Tifon. It lifted MOL's current market share to between 55 and 60 percent.

The Croatian government owns 44 percent of INA. Its shares were quoted at 1563 kuna ($321.8) on Thursday morning, or 1.24 percent down from Wednesday's close.

INA has upstream and downstream business segments. It is involved in gas and oil exploration in Africa and the Middle East.

The anti-trust agency said if INA failed to sell Crobenz within nine months, a specially appointed trustee would take over to complete the sale in the following three months.

Crobenz's market share is similar to that of Russia's Lukoil (LKOH.MM).

Lukoil said last year, when it entered the Croatian market, that it aimed to expand its business, but did not give any details on how it planned to achieve that.

(Reporting by Igor Ilic, edited by Elaine Hardcastle)