MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom may
repurchase a 20% stake in Gazprom Neft and former gas assets of
the liquidated Yukos oil company from Italian Eni and Enel in a
deal worth over $5.5 billion, a business paper reported
Wednesday.
Both purchases have been preliminarily approved by the gas
giant's board of directors and are expected to be announced on
April 6-7, Vedomosti reported, referring to sources close to
Eni and the Gazprom board of directors.
State-controlled Sberbank, Gazprombank and Russian
Agricultural Bank are prepared to lend money to the gas
monopoly, the paper said.
Gazprom will have to pay over $4 billion to Eni for the
20% stake in Gazprom Neft and about $1.5 billion to Eni and
Enel for 51% of shares of SeverEnergia, the paper said.
SeverEnergia, the holding company for Arcticgaz and Urengoil,
has reserves of almost 1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.
The Italian companies acquired the Russian oil and gas
assets two years ago at auctions of the property of liquidated
oil giant Yukos, whose founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving
an eight-year prison term for fraud and tax evasion.
Gazprom Neft is Russia's fifth-largest oil company with
77.66% of its stock held by Gazprom and 20% by Eni. Gazprom
Neft posted a net profit of $5.2 billion in the first nine
months of 2008.
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