Rosneft Wins Yukos Auction
Published May 4th, 2007
Rosneft, the Russian oil company chaired by President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff, has won an auction for Yukos Oil Co.’s largest unit to become the country’s biggest crude producer.
Rosneft’s Neft-Aktiv unit agreed to pay 175.7 billion rubles ($6.8 billion) for Tomskneft and other assets that were grouped for sale at Yukos’s Moscow headquarters Thursday. That’s about $370 million above the starting price.
The acquisitions boost state-run Rosneft’s daily output by 230,000 barrels a day to about 2 million barrels, more than Lukoil’s 1.87 million and a fifth of the national total. Rosneft also acquired the Eastern-Siberian Oil Co., Angarsk refinery and Achinsk petrochemicals plant.
Putin’s government controls a third of an oil industry that is now pumping more crude than Saudi Arabia, after piling more than $30 billion in tax claims on Yukos to destroy what once was the country’s biggest company. Rosneft tripled output by acquiring Yukos’s Yuganskneftegaz unit in 2004. Rosneft’s chairman, Igor Sechin, is the deputy head of Putin’s staff.
Rosneft and Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, agreed to split the assets sold today, with Gazprom taking the oil producers and Rosneft keeping the refinery and petrochemicals plant, Vedomosti reported yesterday, citing an unidentified employee of a Gazprom unit. The only other bidder in Thursday’s auction, Yuniteks, is linked to Gazprom’s banking arm, Vedomosti said.
Today’s win more than doubles Rosneft’s refining capacity.
