Rosneft may buy out Payakhskoye field from Neftegazholding

Rosneft may buy out Payakhskoye field from Neftegazholding

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Oil giant Rosneft (MCX: ROSN) may complete the largest deal on the Russian market in recent years by purchasing the Payakhskoye field from Eduard Khudainatov's Oil and Gas Holding, Kommersant reported at https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4575542 on Wednesday confirmed by a Reuters source familiar with the deal.

"Payakha is part of a large government-backed project that requires the control of one operator", - source said.

Rosneft is developing a large-scale project in the Arctic - Vostok Oil with the prospect of producing more than 100 million tons of sweet oil per year by 2030. Payakha is in the same region as Vostok Oil. The Vankor group of deposits is located https://www.rosneft.ru/press/today/item/199763 about 400 kilometers north of East Oyla.

Rosneft announced on Wednesday that the inclusion of the Payakhskoye and Zapadno-Irkinskoye fields in the Vostok Oil perimeter will increase the resource base of the project by more than 2 billion tons.

The payment can be both cash and a number of assets, which will allow Khudainatov to pay off the holding's debts, and Rosneft to complete the consolidation of the Vostok Oil fields, writes Kommersant.

A Reuters source confirms that the transaction will be carried out according to the scheme: money and "tail" Rosneft assets.

As part of the deal, Rosneft is preparing to transfer assets with a high degree of depletion to Neftegazholding, such as Sakhalinmorneftegaz, RN-Severnaya Neft, Talinskoye, Varyoganeft, as well as part of the Orenburgneft and Samaraneftegaz fields, a source told Reuters.

On the eve of Rosneft's plans to sell old assets, analysts from Sova Capital wrote.

Rosneft announced on Wednesday that it had decided to sell, on market terms, a portion of its assets located in southern Russia, Sakhalin, the Volga-Ural region, Timan-Pechora and Western Siberia to Russian oil and refineries that need additional production and are ready to invest in an increase efficiency and increased oil recovery in mature fields, as well as ready to take on all social obligations.

"In order to improve the quality of the asset portfolio and the profitability of the business, the company will strive to replace these assets with better quality ones.", - Rosneft said in a statement.

(Olesya Astakhova. Edited by Elena Fabrichnaya)