Russia oil major LUKoil boosted its reserves by 440 million barrels of oil equivalent in the first half of 2004, the company said.

LUKoil, the world’s second biggest private oil major by crude reserves after US ExxonMobil, gave no absolute figures.
The company’s directors discussed measures to boost oil reserves just weeks ahead of the possible sale of a LUKoil stake to US ConocoPhillips.
The Russian property fund on September 29 will sell the state’s remaining 7.6 per cent of LUKoil at a starting price of over $1.9 billion.
Government officials have said Conoco, the third largest oil firm in the US, was among potential bidders, while industry sources say Conoco may want to buy up to 25 percent in LUKoil ultimately to book billions of barrels of new reserves.
LUKoil said in April its oil and gas reserves rose four per cent in 2003 to 20.06 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), mainly due to new discoveries and acquisitions in Siberia and Russia’s north. Exxon has reserves of 22 billion boe.
The LUKoil figure represents almost a third of Russia’s total oil reserves, according to BP’s estimates, but LUKoil claims its reserves in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea may help it to dramatically boost the current reserves figure.
 LUKoil said it had discovered three new oilfields, one gas condensate field and five new oil deposits, near developed fields, in the first half.
No new gas deposits were discovered, which is likely to please investors, who prefer oil reserves since the gas market is tightly controlled by gas monopoly Gazprom .
LUKoil also said it produced 42.31 million tonnes of oil in the first half.