Rosneft have taken out a loan of $13 billion. Mosnews reports that the loan is to:
to finance large acquisitions in Russia and abroad.
I wonder what they plan to spend it on. Anyone got any ideas?
The Russia Blog
The Russia Blog
Rosneft have taken out a loan of $13 billion. Mosnews reports that the loan is to:
to finance large acquisitions in Russia and abroad.
I wonder what they plan to spend it on. Anyone got any ideas?
{ 7 comments }
Heribert Schindler 03.21.07 at 7:52 pm
I wonder what they plan to spend it on. Anyone got any ideas?
Pipelines through the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea to bypass Ukraine, Belorussia, Poland … to transport the oil directly to the west without risking to have lose some “in transit”.
The pipelines would / could start in Russia and end in Sassnitz / Germany and somewhere in Turkey respectively.
Of course someone might also be thinking to build pipelines eastward (China).
db 03.21.07 at 8:09 pm
MOSCOW: Russia’s state oil company Rosneft has lined up $22 billion in financing from a consortium of Western banks to buy assets from its bankrupt private sector rival, Yukos, Rosneft said Tuesday…
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/20/business/rosneft.php
Andy 03.21.07 at 8:33 pm
Yeah, my understanding was that, of the $22 billion, $9 billion was to be allocated to buying up the shares that Yukos owns in Rosneft.
But what about the rest? Do you think the money will be used buy up other Yukos assets, or elsewhere?
db 03.21.07 at 9:16 pm
The word is that Rosneft’ will also bid for Samaraneftegaz.
James Westlake 03.22.07 at 8:37 am
Yeah, the $9 billion is for the Yukos stake in Rosneft and the $13 billion one is to bid for some of Yukos’s production units. Yukos owes $10 billion to Rosneft too, which it will get after the auctions.
Tim Newman 03.23.07 at 11:01 pm
I can’t see Rosneft building a pipeline. Gazprom has far more experience in that area.
A possibility is that Rosneft will use the money to increase its stake in the Sakhalin I project. The consortium, of which Rosneft is a minor player, needs to increase its area of operations into new fields to sustain its production rates beyond the next few years but thus far has been refused permission by the government to do so. Should Rosneft get a majority stake they may be allowed to do so, but Exxon (the consortium’s controlling member) would almost certainly want hefty compensation. Incidentally, they are already coming under closer scrutiny from the Russian tax and environmental agencies, which most people believe is the start of a move to strong-arm a better position on the project for the Russian government.
I suppose one could hope Rosneft could spend the money improving the road either side of its shiny new building in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. It would certainly make my driving to work a lot easier.
Lyndon 03.27.07 at 9:08 pm
From BNE:
YUKOS auction update: A mega-lot in the making?
Rencap
March 27, 2007
Event: Prime-Tass reported yesterday (26 Mar) that YUKOS creditors committee could bundle all major YUKOS production subsidiaries (refineries, Tomskneft and Samaraneftegas) into one mega-lot due to be auctioned at the end of April. Based on the previously released valuation estimates by Eduard Rebgun, interim administrator, this lot would be worth approximately $11bn.
Action: We view the composition of this lot, if approved, as favourable to Rosneft.
Rationale: We have long suspected Rosneft to be the front-runner for all of YUKOS’ production assets, and bundling them altogether into one lot makes it much more difficult for other contenders to compete, both financially and politically. This is not surprising to us given the position of Rosneft as YUKOS’ second-largest creditor, and is in line with the composition of two other important lots (namely, 1 and 2), which also seem to strongly favour the state-controlled companies in our view. At the same time, this decision would be in stark contrast to the composition of some of the other less contested lots, for example, minor stakes in two banks (worth less than $10mn each) due to be auctioned separately in Lots 7 and 8. A Vedomosti article this morning suggested that these assets could be split into three lots on a geographical basis, which could also serve the interests of Gazprom Neft, in our view.
Alexander Burgansky
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