LUKoil offers $2bn for Canada firm
MOSCOW: Russian oil major LUKoil has revealed an acquisition spree, bidding $2 billion for oil firm Nelson Resources and announcing plans for a massive return to international capital markets.
Its offer for Toronto-listed Nelson, which has all its assets in Kazakhstan, is at a 15 per cent discount to the market value of a firm with large potential reserves in the ex-Soviet republic. LUKoil investor relations chief Gennady Krasovsky said the company was planning a “massive” borrowing to fund acquisitions, including Nelson and also Lithuania’s Mazeikiu refinery from the fallen oil firm Yukos.
“We’re considering buying Mazeikiu and this is up to $1 billion ... And we are planning to buy Nelson, which is another $2 billion. So we have financing needs of a few billions of dollars and are planning to borrow them abroad because it is obvious that it will be cheaper,” he said.
LUKoil said it would join up with US oil firm ConocoPhillips to buy assets outside Russia. “We have set up a joint group with ConocoPhillips to buy new assets, including in Europe,” vice-president Leonid Fedun said.
Transneft seeks $6.6bn for pipeline
MOSCOW: Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has confirmed plans to borrow $6.6 billion to finance the construction of the first phase of a major eastward oil export pipeline.
The first stage of the proposed 4,200-km pipeline, whose construction was approved by the government last December, would run from the Irkutsk region in Siberia to Skovorodino in the Amur region, or midway to the Pacific.
Vice-president Yevgeny Shkolov said the second phase of construction will include expanding the pipeline to the Pacific coast and will be part of Transneft's project financing. The company has estimated total costs of the pipeline, critical for Russia to diversify away from European markets and secure access to booming Asian markets, at $11.5 billion.
Petrobras and Galp launch joint bid
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras and Portugal’s Galp Energia will together bid for a natural gas distribution company in Brazil owned by Italy’s ENI, Brazilian newspaper Valor said.
It also quoted a Petrobras executive as saying the Brazilian company has not defined yet if it will pursue a stake in Galp, which is part-owned by ENI, as media in Brazil and Portugal have speculated. “As for the bid for Gas Brasiliano, everything is certain. But (discussions of) Petrobras participation in Galp capital is in a very preliminary phase ... Nothing has been defined yet,” Valor quoted Petrobras foreign operations director Nestor Cervero as saying.
