PRESS: Rosneft to buy Payakha field from Neftegasholding

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (PRIME) -- Russian oil major Rosneft will buy the Payakha oil field, one of the fields that comprise the Vostok Oil project together with Rosneft’s Vankor oilfield cluster, from Neftegazholding of Eduard Khudainatov, Kommersant business daily reported on Wednesday.

Several sources told Kommersant that Rosneft’s board of directors approved the decision on November 16, simultaneously with a decision to sell 10% in Vostok Oil to Singapore’s Trafigura. Rosneft may pay for the field not only with money, bit with assets, including RN-Sakhalinmorneftegaz, Varyeganneftegaz, RN-Severnaya Neft, the Talinskoye field, and some assets of Orenburgneft and Samaraneftegaz, the business daily reported.

The deal should allow Rosneft to consolidate assets of the Vostok Oil, while Khudainatov will be able to redeem debts.

A Rosneft representative did not directly confirm the deal to Kommersant, but said that “inclusion of the Payakha and the Zapadno-Irkynskoye field in Vostok Oil will raise the resource base of the project by more than 2 billion tonnes (of oil).” The representative confirmed the wish of the company to sell some assets in Russia’s South, on the Sakhalin Island, on the Volga River and the Urals, in the Timano-Pechora district, and in West Siberia, Kommersant said.

The company wants to sell these assets because of “the trends of tax regulation and output restrictions under the OPEC+ deal and because of the epidemiologic situation.” Russian oil and oil refining companies that need additional production and ready to invest in it at brown fields will become the buyers.

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