Page 7 - FSU OGM Week 11 2021

FSUOGM INVESTMENT FSUOGM

Rosneft eyes asset sales in south Russia

RUSSIA RUSSIAN state oil producer Rosneft is report- Rosneft has announced a number of major
edly selling three oil assets in the country’s south acquisitions and divestments recently as it looks
The company is by the end of May, Reuters reported last week to reorient its focus to Vostok Oil, a project
reorienting its portfolio citing sources. which company CEO Igor Sechin has suggested
towards Vostok Oil. The move comes as Rosneft prepares to push could produce 1mn bpd by 2027, and double that
ahead with its $70bn-100bn Vostok Oil project amount at a later stage.
in the Russian Arctic. In a departure from its tra- In December, Rosneft sold a 10% stake in
ditional strategy, the company now appears to be Vostok Oil to commodities trader Trafigura for
rationalising its upstream assets, in order to raise a reported $7bn, and it is understood to be in
cash and boost performance. talks on bringing on board other equity part-
The assets slated for sale are its Stavropol- ners. The same month, the company closed the
neftegaz, Ingushneft and Dagneft production takeover of 100% stakes in Taimyrneftegaz and
divisions, which together yield 1mn tonnes per Taimyrburservis, both subsidiaries of private
year (20,000 barrels per day) of oil. Private firm oil firm Neftegazholding. Through the deals it
Cengeo has already acquired a 51% stake in acquired the Payakha fields, set to play a central
Ingushneft, while divestments at the remaining role in Vostok Oil, as well as other exploration
two companies should be completed before the acreage.
end of May. Russia’s company registry also shows that
Oil from the companies is exported via the Neftegazholding has also obtained minority
Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) system, in shares in several Rosneft subsidiaries, suggesting
which Rosneft holds a minority stake. some sort of asset swap took place. ™

Antipinsky refinery sale delayed

RUSSIA THE court-arranged auction for the sale of Rus- was arrested in July 2019 on charges of graft. The
sia’s bankrupted Antipinsky oil refinery has been former head of the Antipinsky refinery, Gennady
Antipinsky was formerly postponed from March 12 until March 31, fol- Lisovichenko, was also arrested in absentia.
Russia's largest lowing an appeal by one of the facility’s creditors. New Stream also used to control the 32,000
independent refinery. Promsvyazbank requested that the sale be bpd Mariysky refinery and the 120,000 bpd Afip-
cancelled but fellow creditors Sberbank and sky refinery, which were also passed on to cred-
SBK responded by petitioning that it proceed. itors. The Afipsky facility was bought by Safmar,
The sale covers the 180,000 barrel per day (bpd) owned by oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev, which
refinery itself and a share in the New Stream oil secured a $1bn loan to modernise the facility. ™
company that formerly controlled Antipinsky.
The starting price for bids is RUB111bn ($1.5bn).
Antipinsky was once Russia’s biggest inde-
pendent oil refinery but was closed in May 2019
after running out of cash to buy oil. The asset
was transferred to Sberbank, which was owed
RUB346bn from the plant.
Production resumed in July 2019, under a
tolling scheme which involves the refinery pro-
cessing oil that it bought by Sokar Energoresurs,
a joint venture between Sberbank and Azerbai-
jan’s state-owned oil firm SOCAR that now owns
an 80% stake in the refinery. But the refinery has
no ownership rights to either the oil or the petro-
leum products it turns out, earning only enough
to cover refining costs.
New Stream was previously Russia’s leading
independent oil refiner, in a segment dominated
by larger integrated companies such as Rosneft,
Gazprom Neft and Lukoil. It ran into difficulties
following Russia’s economic crisis in 2014, strug-
gling to service loans it had earlier taken out to
fund new investments.
New Stream’s former owner Dmitry Mazurov

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