Russia’s oil producer Lukoil has agreed to sell most of its international assets to private equity giant Carlyle.
Following the U.S. sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, “as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine,” Lukoil announced in October it would sell all of its international assets, initiating a formal process to receive bids from potential buyers.
After months of negotiations with potential buyers and one preliminary agreement with Gunvor blocked by the U.S. Treasury, which described the trading group as “the Kremlin’s puppet”, Lukoil announced it has signed an agreement to sell Lukoil International GmbH to Carlyle.
The transaction does not include the assets in Kazakhstan, which will remain owned by Lukoil Group and continue their operations under respective licenses, the Russian firm said.
The agreement is not exclusive and is subject to conditions such as the procurement of necessary regulatory approvals, including permission from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for the transaction with Carlyle.
Lukoil also noted that it continues negotiations with other potential buyers.
After Gunvor withdrew its bid, companies including Carlyle, U.S. oil and gas supermajors Chevron and ExxonMobil, and International Holding Company (IHC) of Abu Dhabi have expressed interest to the U.S. Treasury to potentially acquire Lukoil’s international assets.
On Wednesday, Kazakhstan said it had filed a formal bid with the U.S. Treasury seeking authorization to buy out Lukoil’s assets in Kazakhstan. These include 13.5% in the Karachaganak oilfield, a 5% stake in the Chevron-led Tengizchevroil consortium operating the huge Tengiz oilfield, and 12.5% in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which operates the pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Novorossiysk port on Russia’s Black Sea that handles most of Kazakhstan’s crude oil exports.
Separately, Iraq, which temporarily took control over Lukoil’s huge West Qurna 2 oilfield following the U.S. sanctions, is in negotiations with Chevron about the U.S. oil giant buying the asset.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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