Russia's oil giant Rosneft will buy 50 percent of Germany's Ruhr Oel from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, an agreement signed by Rosneft and PDVSA on Friday said.
"The volume of the deal will amount to $1.6 billion, excluding PDVSA raw material reserves and accounts receivable, which will be valued when the deal is closed," Rosneft said in a statement.
PDVSA owns Ruhr Oel GmbH, which, together with BP, owns between 24 and 100 percent of the German Gelsenkirchen, Bayern-oil, Miro and Schwedt oil refineries.
The total oil processing volume of the refineries amounts to 50 million tons, or 20 percent of all German refining capacities.
The acquisition will increase Rosneft's refining capacity by 11.6 million tons per year.
"This transaction is consistent with our strategy of expanding our presence through high quality assets in key international markets," Rosneft President Eduard Khudainatov said in a statement.
"As a result of this acquisition, 18 percent of Rosneft's refining capacity will be located in the heart of industrialized Europe. Our resource base will strengthen Ruhr Oel's competitive position, while our growing refining and petrochemical businesses will benefit from joint ownership via Ruhr Oel of leading technologies and management practices," Khudainatov said.
Apart from the agreement on Ruhr Oel, Rosneft and PDVSA agreed to upgrade a gas compressor at the Venezuelan Maracaibo Lake, as well as design and build an installation for hydrocarbon extraction from deep deposits.
Rosneft and four other top Russian oil companies created a joint venture with a subsidiary of PDVSA to develop the Junin 6 block in Venezuela's vast Orinoco heavy crude belt. The project capacity is estimated at 22.5 million tons of oil per year.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said that Russia's gas giant, Gazprom, could participate in working out a general plan for gas industry development in Venezuela.
"Gazprom is likely to take part in working out a general plan for gas sector development in Venezuela...We have good prospects as far as gas is concerned," Sechin told journalists following Russian-Venezuelan top level talks in the Kremlin on Friday.
MOSCOW, Oct 15 (RIA Novosti)
