[Goldfisch]

Lukoil Considers Building a Refinery in Venezuela

Created: 02.03.2005 14:57 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:57 MSK, 21 minutes ago

On Wednesday, March 2, Vagit Alekperov, CEO of Russia’s oil giant Lukoil, said that his company may build a refinery and Venezuela and is considering supplying Venezuela’s own U.S. refineries with Russian crude that can be processed into oil products and sold through Lukoil’s distribution network in the United States.

“I will travel to Venezuela on May 23 with concrete proposals. We hope to get an approval from Venezuelan President [Hugo Chavez] and the oil ministry, so the contract could be ready by the year-end,” Vagit Alekperov, quoted by RIA Novosti, told reporters. “We have got an offer to build a refinery in Venezuela for further re-export of products to the United States,” he added.

Alekperov also said that Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA has large assets in the United States, known as Citgo. “They have refineries in the U.S. We have the distribution network. We are holding negotiations to deliver our crude to these refineries and to receive oil products for further sale [through Lukoil’s gas station network],” said Alekperov. The Russian oil giant has 2,700 gas stations in the United States.

Speaking of other projects Lukoil’s CEO said that there are no other plans to build refineries either in the U.S. or in “third countries”. He did say that Lukoil may team up with state-owned Rosneft Oil Company to bid for new deposits in Russia’s north at a state auction later this year.

Quelle: MosNews