Austrian petroleum firm OMV AG on Thursday said it has agreed to sell its 45% stake in German refinery network Bayernoil.

According to a report by Reuters, the Bayernoil stake was sold by OMV to Varo Energy for an undisclosed sum. Varo Energy is a joint venture of Swiss oil trading house Vitol and American private equity firm Carlyle Group.

The report said that OMV in January exited its LMG stockholding business to its ELG unit for a one-off pretax gain of €440 million ($606 million). OMV's finance chief said that the Bayernoil deal would not be as big as the said transaction.

OMV said that it expects the Bayernoil deal to close next year. The sale is still subject to the non-exercise or waiver of pre-emption rights by the existing co-shareholders as well as a merger clearance, Reuters said.

The Bayernoil sale completes OMV's plans to reduce annual refinery capacity by 4.6 million tonnes to 17.4 million tonnes. OMV refining and marketing head Manfred Leitner said that the deal is a big step in OMV's defined divestment program targeting proceeds of €1 billion by the end of 2014, the report stated.