11/07/2012 Another vice-president of LUKOIL bought its shares for almost 10 million rubles. MOSCOW, November 6 - Prime. Vice President for Supplies and Sales, Member of the Board of the largest Russian private oil company OJSC LUKOIL LKOH > Valery Subbotin acquired shares of the company for 9.986 million rubles, the company said in a statement. Subbotin's share in authorized capital LUKOIL increased after purchasing 5.26 thousand shares on November 1 from 0.0048% to 0.0054%. LUKOIL managers began actively buying shares of the company from...... 05/17/2012 Vice-President of LUKOIL: They are being worked on various options supplies of Iraqi oil to refineries in Southeast Asia, China and India.. “One of the main tasks for the near future is the organization of sales of oil produced at the West Qurna-2 field in Iraq, developed by LUKOIL,” he said in an interview with Oil magazine of Russia Valery Subbotin, Vice President for Supplies and Sales of OJSC LUKOIL... 05.15.2012 Vice President of LUKOIL: The terminal in Barcelona will serve to strengthen the company’s position in the Mediterranean, North and West African regions... year company LITASCO SA formed a joint venture with the Spanish Meroil SA in equal shares to create one of the largest oil product terminals in the Mediterranean, Valery Subbotin, vice president for supplies and sales of OJSC LUKOIL, said in an interview with Oil of Russia magazine...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's largest private oil company Lukoil has replaced its vice president for oil supplies and sales amid complications in its relationship with state-owned Rosneft, three sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Lukoil logo at a gas station in Moscow. Russia's largest private oil company Lukoil has replaced its vice president for oil supplies and sales amid complications in its relationship with state-owned Rosneft, three sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

According to them, Valery Subbotin, owner of 0.0152% of Lukoil shares, who worked in the company for 18 years, including the last nine as vice president, is moving to a leadership position in trading company Lukoil, Litasco, and his place has already been taken by Vadim Vorobyov, who was previously Lukoil’s vice president for oil refining, petrochemicals and gas processing.

The Lukoil press service refused to comment on personnel changes in the company. Reuters attempted to contact Subbotin by telephone and sent a request for comment to e-mail, however, he did not answer.

Lukoil is the largest private oil company in the Russian Federation and the second largest oil company in the country after Rosneft. Both are major and active players in the Russian oil market, whose interests have clashed more than once in different segments, be it the struggle for fields, assets, or buyers of oil and petroleum products.

Over the past two months, Rosneft, led by Igor Sechin, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has carried out a number of major transactions, in particular by joining Lukoil’s partner Bashneft, purchasing a stake in the largest Indian oil refinery Essar and organizing the sale of shares of Rosneft itself.

Sechin was able to short term ensure the sale of 19.5 percent of Rosneft to Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and trader Glencore, gaining 10.5 billion euros desperately needed by the Russian budget. And although observers doubted the effectiveness of the deal, Putin praised the efforts of the head of Rosneft, who responded by saying that the deal was only possible thanks to Putin's personal contribution.

Earlier, during the process of annexing Bashneft, Sechin managed to overcome resistance to the deal in the highest echelons of power.

Yes, former minister economic development In Russia, Alexey Ulyukaev, who was arrested on November 15 on charges of corruption, in July called Rosneft an “improper buyer” for Bashneft, Russian state agencies reported.

One of Reuters’ sources linked Subbotin’s departure with the consequences of Lukoil’s loss of the fight with Rosneft for a controlling stake in Bashneft.

“Lukoil worked closely with Bashneft, really wanted to buy it, but Rosneft, it turns out, stood in the way, and after the deal it immediately began to reshape the oil sales scheme, naturally, not in favor of Lukoil. There cannot be good relations here,” said one trader on the Russian oil market.

Subbotin was responsible at Lukoil for building trade policy companies on the domestic market and when supplying oil for export.

On October 12, 2016, Rosneft press secretary Mikhail Leontyev said on the Dozhd TV channel that Rosneft has a lot of questions for Bashneft and its operational activities, including on issues related to oil sales between Lukoil and Bashneft

Rosneft, in response to a Reuters request, said that “logistical support for Bashneft’s assets will be carried out primarily based on economic feasibility. The company currently has an active contract. Changing its parameters is possible - based on the requirements of its business plan, Rosneft will determine the optimal supply routes for its products.”

During the privatization of Bashneft, Lukoil ceded the asset to Rosneft and practically left the race by the time the decision was made to sell the stake. After gaining control over Bashneft, Rosneft approached with particular care the termination of all contracts of the Bashkir company with Lukoil.

Thus, since November, Rosneft stopped purchasing oil from Lukoil for the Bashkir refineries of Bashneft, although Lukoil was the largest supplier, shipping about 500,000 tons of oil per month.

At the same time, Rosneft did not terminate the contract for the supply of oil to the Bashkir refineries with Gazprom Neft, although the volume of purchases under this agreement was significantly lower - less than 50,000 tons per month.

An unresolved issue after the merger of Bashneft with Rosneft remains the scheme for marketing oil from the fields named after. Trebs and them. Titov, the operator of which is Bashneft-Polyus, in which Bashneft owns 74.9 percent and Lukoil - 25.1, traders say.

Oil from the fields enters the Kharyaga-Varandey pipeline to the Varandey terminal, the entire infrastructure belongs to Lukoil, and is shipped as part of the Varandey Blend. Since the beginning of supplies, Litasco has been marketing raw materials.

The contract for supplies to Litasco is valid only until the end of 2016, but there are currently no alternative routes for supplying oil from Trebs and Titov, industry sources say.

“Rosneft doesn’t have many options: either peacefully continue to cooperate with Litasco and use Lukoil’s infrastructure, or try to buy out the entire infrastructure in Varandey, although Lukoil is unlikely to want to sell it,” says an industry source.

According to him, in last month It is the export of oil from Trebs and Titov that is the most pressing issue in relations between Rosneft and Lukoil.

“It seems that everything is complicated with Trebs: deadlines are running out, Sechin does not want to supply oil through Lukoil at all, but there are no alternatives, just as there is no money. The field is in an active development phase, if production is stopped due to disagreements, it will be a failure,” said one industry source familiar with the negotiations.

Market participants also fear that a change in the top manager responsible for oil supplies could cause a reduction in supplies of raw materials to the domestic market of the Russian Federation.

“Lukoil sent a lot of oil to the domestic market, and now it is unclear whether these supplies will be reduced or not. Now, in any case, those companies that worked with Lukoil under replacement schemes received nothing as of January,” said one of the traders.

Senior Vice President of the company Valery Subbotin will head international company Litasco. Is Vagit Alekperov withdrawing assets?

At the beginning of February, large-scale personnel changes took place at Lukoil. One of them is the departure of the company’s senior vice president for supplies and sales, Valery Subbotin. He will head Litasco, an international trader for Lukoil.

According to sources from the Lukoil company, Valery Subbotin has long been ready to say “good bye” to Russia, since he has already applied for US citizenship and even received a green card. And his family had long said goodbye to their homeland. And Subbotin himself spends more time in Switzerland than in Russia. From Switzerland, he runs the trading company Lucoy-Litasco.

In principle, Lukoil has long fine-tuned its management of international assets. And he does this with the help of the company Lucoy Overseas, registered in the British Virgin Islands. For some reason, the company’s office is located not in Moscow, but in the UAE. And this despite the fact that Lukoil positions itself as a national company.

What kind of shift happened in the minds of the Lukoil management then? Where do such pro-Western sentiments come from? And everything, it turns out, is simple. On January 13 this year, America extended sanctions against individuals and companies from Russia.

And if most companies, taking into account the sanctions, develop their business within the country, then Lukoil, apparently, decided to make a knight’s move - to move its business abroad. And nowhere, but to America itself. So, it is quite possible that we will soon learn about the new company Lukoil-America.

It cannot be said that this will be such a surprise, since the owners of Lukoil Vagit Alekperov and Leonid Fedun not only have business abroad, but also constantly transfer assets there.

Lukoil is looking for where to go deeper

The co-owners of Lukoil already have American business- Panatlantic Exploration company, acquired by them back in 2010. The chairman of the board of directors of the company is Olga Plaksina, who is also the chairman of the board of IFD Capital, which manages the assets of Lukoil.

Panatlantic Exploration is engaged deepwater drilling. Business is capital intensive. The cost of one well is about $100 million, and the chances of success are 30%. The company's office is located in Houston, the American oil capital. Lukoil's investments in the company have already exceeded $100 million.

The operational management of the company is carried out by Leonid Fedun. According to experts, such projects are not assessed in a year or two, but are designed for decades. Apparently, Alekperov and Fedun back in 2010. Before the sanctions, we seriously and permanently decided to move to America. And they prepared a new springboard for this.

Leonid Fedun

Offshore childhood of Lukoil

The first offshore company appeared among Lukoil shareholders back in 1999. Before this, the company's shareholders were quite transparent - the state, companies affiliated with Lukoil itself, investment banks and the American company ARCO. Maybe the owners of the company developed a love for America already at that time?

And if America is a controversial issue, then Lukoil’s offshore life began right then. The company was called Reforma Investment, it owned 9% of the shares.

The Lukoil executives themselves threw up their hands in bewilderment. Like, we have no idea what kind of company this is. Behind it is a pool of some unknown investors. However, everything said that everything was well known to everyone.

Only one application was submitted to the competition, since the second applicant offered only $1000 higher than the starting price, which suggests that the result of the competition was a foregone conclusion.

What reasons forced Lukoil to hide the true buyer of its shares? Probably no one will ever know about this. But one thing is clear that even then Lukoil entered into offshore life. And then she healed to the fullest.

Lukoil is moving offshore

The withdrawal of money to offshore companies by Lukoil is also not new. Back in 2014 the company published reports according to which for the year the company's net profit decreased by almost 40%, and revenue from projects increased by 2%. How can this be? Profits are down, but revenue is up.

Experts explain this by “optimizing” the tax base. At the same time, Lukoil’s top management is increasing its shares, again buying out the company’s American depositary receipts. At the same time, investment programs are being reduced. And all this, of course, increases dividends in dollars.

All this is reminiscent of the behavior of the owners of TNK-BP, when before the sale of Rosneft they got rid of their assets. Now the management of Lukoil is doing the same. But for now there is no talk of any sale of it in Russia.

It is also interesting that by investing huge amounts of money in the dubious West Qurna-2 project, Lukoil is freezing the work of the Ukhta Oil Refinery, which has existed since 1934. What neither the war, nor perestroika, nor crises could achieve, the Lukoil management successfully accomplished. And it doesn’t matter that Vagit Alekperov promised not to lay off staff. He took and deceived people.

Lukoil plans to spend 60% of its profits on paying dividends, that is, management actually pays money to itself, which experts call “hidden remuneration.” The fact that in 2013 is also alarming. top management received a salary of 3 billion rubles, and in 2014 at 1.5 billion rubles. Have you come up with clever schemes to avoid the light?

According to various estimates, Lukoil back in 2014. transferred about $5 billion to offshore companies. In addition, it turned out that, with some joy, some Cypriot companies LUKOIL Employee Limited and Lukoil Investments Cyprus Ltd owned 11% of the company’s shares. Why would they receive such an honor? The excuse is the presence of Lukoil gas stations on the island. But they are available all over the world; for some reason Lukoil does not offer a share to other countries.

Lukoil also refuses to disclose oil refining margins. Why? But because some of its factories are located in Italy. And it is beneficial for the company for the money to be deposited in the accounts of foreign banks.

Goodbye, Russia?

When its citizens leave a country, it can be considered a personal matter for everyone. A person will always look for where it is better. When is a big one going to leave the country? private company, then this is already a state problem.

Lukoil is also looking for where it is better, or rather, where it is more profitable for it to conduct its business. And she doesn’t care how the country’s economy will develop or whether it will develop at all. It seems that Vagit Alekperov and Leonid Fedun don’t care about anything other than profit. Or are they afraid that they will be swallowed up by Rosneft?

Be that as it may, this situation demonstrates that even a large private business doesn't feel social responsibility. You can freeze the work of the plant, you can make empty promises, you can “optimize” tax schemes so as not to pay these taxes to the budget. You can withdraw money to offshore companies, regardless of the demands of the country’s leadership on deoffshorization.

How to fix the situation? And is this possible? Probably, possible. Only other people will already do this. Who will think and act completely differently from the Lukoil management.

Subbotin Valery Sergeevich (born in 1974, Tyumen, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, RSFSR, USSR) - top manager of the oil company LUKOIL. In 1996 he graduated from Tyumen State University. In 1996-1998 he studied at Anglia Business School, Cambridge (UK), received the title of Master of Business Administration.

In 1998-2000 - financial analyst, financial manager of LUKOIL-Prague. In 2000-2001 - deputy general director LUKOIL-Bulgaria company. In 2001-2002 - financial manager of the Moscow representative office of the Swiss trader LUKOIL Litasco. In 2002-2003 - Deputy General Director of LUKOIL Pan-Americas (USA). In 2003-2005 - First Deputy Head of the Office of the Board of Directors of LUKOIL. In 2005-2007 - First Deputy Head of the Main Department of Supply and Sales of LUKOIL. From October 2007 to February 2017 - Vice President-Head of the Main Supply and Sales Department of LUKOIL. Since February 2017 - Chairman of the Board of Directors of the international trader LUKOIL - Litasco.

How a Lukoil trader took a prominent place in the oil trading market

Litasco is a unique phenomenon for the Russian oil business. It seems that this is the only oil trader of Russian origin that not only sells foreign oil and petroleum products, but also does so in volumes comparable to the supplies of related companies.

Rosneft terminated Bashneft's major contract with LUKOIL ahead of schedule

Two weeks after purchasing a controlling stake in Bashneft, Rosneft decided to terminate its agreement with LUKOIL on the purchase of oil for three Ufa refineries and the sale of petroleum products. The total amount of these agreements was about 400 billion rubles.

Will Alekperov follow Yevtushenkov?

After the arrest of the owner of the Sistema holding, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the state can also present its claims against the main shareholder of Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov.

Lukoil today announced personnel appointments. They occurred as part of a planned rotation of management personnel, the company emphasizes.

The position of first vice president of Lukoil was taken by Alexander Matytsyn, who previously held the position of senior vice president of the company for finance.

Sergei Kukura has been appointed Advisor to the President of the company; previously he was First Vice President for Economics and Finance.

Vadim Vorobyov was transferred to the position of senior vice president for supplies and sales, and Rustem Gimaletdinov, who previously headed Lukoil-Ukhtaneftepererabotka, was appointed vice president for oil refining, petrochemicals, and gas processing. Alexey Ivanov, who previously worked as head of the technology department and production planning, says the press release.

Valery Subbotin completes his work in central office companies. Previously, he was Lukoil's senior vice president for supplies and sales. Subbotin is moving to the position of chairman of the board of directors of the international trader Lukoil - the Litasco company, Interfax reported at the end of December, citing two sources familiar with the situation. A Reuters source then linked Subbotin’s departure with the consequences of Lukoil losing the fight with Rosneft for a controlling stake in Bashneft.

Lukoil worked closely with Bashneft, really wanted to buy it, but Rosneft, it turns out, stood in the way, and after the deal it immediately began to reshape the oil sales scheme, naturally, not in favor of Lukoil. There cannot be good relations here,” one trader told the agency. Subbotin was responsible at Lukoil for building the company’s trade policy in the domestic market and in the supply of oil for export.

In October 2016, 60.16% of the voting shares of Bashneft were purchased by Rosneft. She immediately had questions about the work of Bashneft - in particular, about how the company purchases oil from Lukoil. On November 1, the contract for the supply of Lukoil oil to the Bashneft refinery and the return supply of petroleum products to its subsidiary, Litasco, was terminated. Another contract for the sale of Bashneft-Polyus oil was extended for a year, Interfax reported in early January.

In mid-January, Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov announced that Rosneft and Lukoil had reached an understanding. “As I understand it, the new shareholder of our joint project [Rosneft] had some doubts. They conducted an audit, and we re-signed all agreements, all contracts for the sale of oil, for the development of projects. I am sure that both shareholders are interested in the dynamic development of these projects. Today we have no misunderstandings either in the development of projects or in the sale of products from the Trebs and Titov project,” he said in an interview with Interfax.