LUKOIL sold 20 percent of its stake in NIKoil at par value to ISR Holding (Azerbaijan).

LUKOIL Oil Company has also sold 1 percent of NIKoil shares to Uralsib Finance Corporation.

Investment Commercial Bank NIKOIL is an affiliated bank of Uralsib operating in Azerbaijan since 2002. Bank's authorized capital is US$5 million, assets come to US$24 million.

LUKOIL is the leading vertically integrated oil Company in Russia. The Company's main activities are oil & gas exploration and production, and production and sale of petroleum products.

LUKOIL is the second largest private oil Company worldwide by proven reserves. The Company has around 1.5% of global oil reserves and 2,1% of global oil production. LUKOIL dominates the Russian energy sector, with 19% of total Russian oil production and 19% of total Russian oil refining.

LUKOIL proven reserves1 at the beginning of 2004 were 15,977 mln bbl of crude oil and 24,473 bcf of natural gas, totaling 20,056 mln boe.

Geological prospecting by LUKOIL is mainly concentrated in West Siberia, the Timano-Pechora oil province and the Yamal region.

LUKOIL is carrying out international exploration and production projects in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, North Africa and Columbia.

LUKOIL owns significant oil refining capacity both in Russia and abroad. In Russia the company owns four large refineries at Perm, Volgograd, Ukhta and Nizhny Novgorod. Aggregate capacity of these facilities is 40.8 mln tons of oil per year. LUKOIL also has refineries in Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania, with aggregate capacity of 17.8 mln tons per year. In 2003 LUKOIL refined 42.3 mln tons of oil at its own refineries, including 34.3 mln tons at its Russian refineries.

By the end of 2003 LUKOIL's sales network covered 17 countries of the world, including Russia, the CIS (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine), Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Romania, Czech Republic, Estonia) and the USA. LUKOIL sales network consisted of 10 marketing entities operating in 60 regions of Russia. The Company retail network included 1,456 own and leased outlets as well as 276 franchised outlets. Sales of petroleum products through the retail network in 2003 were 6.08 mln tons, of which 2.4 mln tons in Russia, 1.24 mln tons in Europe, and 2.44 mln tons in the USA.

"AK&M", 31/05/2005 17:46