On Wednesday the Russian State Property Fund (RFPF) held an auction to sell the state shareholding in LUKoil. Three bidders took part in the sale. The auction started 12.29 MT and lasted just for a minute and a half. Promsvyazbank offered the initial price of $ 1.928 bn. Then ZAO Promregionholding offered $ 1.934 bn. The call for bids lasted from August 30 till September 27. The shareholding's initial price was $ 1.928 bn.
Within five days the RFPF and the winner - Springtime Holdings Ltd - will sign an agreement, RFPF head Kyrill Tomashchuk told RIA Novosti. Then the LUKoil state shareholding will be transferred to the winner. A total of 64 million 638 thousand 729 LUKoil equity shares with a nominal value of 0.025 rouble ($1 = 29.22 roubles) per share was sold.
In late July Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed a decree on the sale of the state shareholding in LUKoil as a single lot (to a single investor) at an open bidding in the third quarter of 2004.
ConocoPhillips is a traditional partner of LUKoil. The companies are planning a joint "Northern Territories" project to explore a number of fields in the Timano-Pechora region (Nenets Autonomous District) with oil reserves amounting to 100 million tons. Recently LUKoil also bought 795 gas stations in the USA from ConocoPhillips.
As early as July, meeting with Jim Malva, US company's CEO, and Vagit Alekperov, LUKoil chief, President Vladimir Putin pledged to support ConocoPhillips strategic investments in Russia. After that meeting experts started to regard ConocoPhillips as the principal bidder for LUKoil state shareholding.
