Page 10 - FSUOGM Week 04 2020

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
East Siberian junior faces bankruptcy
RUSSIA
Dulisma may be worth around $320mn, but if could at a bankruptcy auction could go for much less.
DULISMA, a small private oil producer work- ing in Eastern Siberia, is facing bankruptcy fol- lowing legal claims being filed against it, Russia’s Vedomosti reported last week.
Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency filed a lawsuit against the company on January 20 at the Moscow Arbitration Court, on behalf of its creditor Yugra Bank, which itself was declared bankrupt in October 2018. Ironically, Dulisma belongs to Alexei Khotin, the former billionaire owner of Yugra, who was detained last year on charges of embezzlement.
The claims against Dulisma are worth around $290mn, Vedomosti reported on January 21.
Dulisma’s core asset is the Dulisminskoye oilfield in Eastern Siberia’s Irkutsk region. It was formerly controlled by Urals Energy, but was handed over to state lender Sberbank in 2009 in lieu of a loan repayment. Sberbank then sold the asset in 2012 to Rus-Oil, a small venture owned by Khotin.
Dulisma has faced no less than eight bank- ruptcy lawsuits since 2009.The Federal Tax Ser- vice tried to initiate bankruptcy proceedings
against the company in 2017 over non-payment of mineral extraction tax (MET). But the debt was settled and the case closed.
The Dulisminskoye field supplies oil to Asia-Pacific markets via the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. According to Rus-Oil, its output averaged 32,000 barrels per day in 2016 and had been projected to reach 50,000 bpd within a few years. Dulisminskoye’s recoverable oil reserves are estimated at 308mn barrels, according to an assessment by DeGolyer and MacNaughton.
Dulisma is worth around RUB20bn ($320mn) but if sold at a bankruptcy auction, could go for only RUB10-12bn, according to Russia’s BKS. The company could be of interest to small private players, the financial group told Vedomosti, such as Russneft or Independent Petroleum Co. (NNK).
Yugra was stripped of its banking licence in 2017, with Russia’s central bank stating it had violated banking rules and falsified its accounts. The lender had RUB34bn ($544mn) in assets at the time, and RUB195bn ($3.1bn) in liabilities.™
Rosneft reports new oil find in Orenburg
RUSSIA
It is Rosneft unit Orenburgneft’s largest find in several years.
RUSSIA’S Rosneft has reported a new oil discov- ery in the Orenburg region bordering Kazakh- stan, it said on January 27.
The state-owned producer said exploratory drilling by its local subsidiary Orenburgneft at the Buzuluksky block had led to the discov- ery of the West-Dolgovskoye field. The deposit contains over 7mn tonnes (51.3mn barrels) in C1+C2 oil reserves, it said.
Rosneft said it intended to drill two more exploration and production wells at the field, which will be developed largely as a tie-back to existing infrastructure. Its oil will be pumped to the Bobrovskaya oil installation before heading to market.
Orenburgneft is one of Rosneft’s largest pro- duction units, operating around 170 oilfields across Orenburg and the neighbouring Samara region. Many of the largest of these fields are very
mature, however, having started production in the 1960s and 1970s.
Orenburgneft’s output has been falling stead- ily for several years. It reached 14.14mn tonnes (284,000 barrels per day, (bpd)) in 2019, down 2.4% year on year, according to the Russian Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK research unit. It had 2.11bn barrels of oil in proven and 1.39bn in probable reserves at the end of 2018, according to DeGolyer & MacNaughton.
West-Dolgovskoye is Orenburgneft’s first find this year, and its largest in several years. The company made two oil discoveries in 2018, one estimated to be 15mn barrels in size, followed by a third 22mn-barrel find last year.
Orenburgneft won rights to the Buzuluksky block last year, and shot a 1,800-square km 3D seismic survey before starting drilling opera- tions. ™
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 04 29•January•2020