Russia’s Gazprom Neft not to buy Lukoil’s stake in National Oil Consortium

Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia’s energy giant Gazprom, is not discussing acquisition of a stake of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, in the National Oil Consortium, the company’s deputy chief executive officer Vadim Yakovlev told a news conference on February 5, Itar-Tass has reported.

“We have not started a discussion, as we are happy with a 20 percent stake we own,” he said.

Russia’s National Oil Consortium owns a 40 percent stake in the joint venture with Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. that develops the Hunin-6 field, the oil reserves of which are estimated at 195 million tonnes. Investments into the project are estimated at $15 billion.

At the moment, Hunin-6 daily output totals 400 tonnes, Yakovlev said.

LUKOIL proposed the National Oil Consortium to buy its stake in the Hunin-6 oil development project in Venezuela. In early October 2013 Rosneft chief Igor Sechin told reporters his company was interested in buying LUKOIL’s stake in the National Oil Consortium, while Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov said his company received this offer from LUKOIL and would consider it.

Copyright: Itar-Tass, 2014