U.S. OFAC extends Lukoil's license to sell foreign assets until Nov 21
MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) - The United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has extended the license until November 21 to permit negotiations and conditional agreements with Lukoil to sell Lukoil International GmbH (LIG), which owns foreign assets of the oil company, or any controlled company.
OFAC must separately approve any transactions.
The license expires on October 22.
OFAC must separately approve any transactions.
OFAC added Lukoil and several of its subsidiaries to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List on October 22, 2025. Following the imposition of sanctions, Lukoil announced its intention to sell foreign assets valued at $20 billion. The company received and accepted an offer from international commodities trader Gunvor, with key terms agreed. However, the U.S. Treasury Department's denial of approval precluded the deal. Lukoil entered into an agreement with the American investment firm Carlyle in late January 2026 to sell Lukoil International GmbH. This expired at the end of July, since it was not approved by OFAC.
LIG said in a report dated September 30 that "intensive negotiations are currently underway with other interested parties regarding the potential acquisition of the LIG group of companies."
The Financial Times said recently that billionaire financier Todd Boehly, who had just sold the Chelsea football club, had secured the backing of the U.S. government and Gulf power brokers to bid for the international assets of Lukoil. The FT said Boehly's consortium included U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates' national security adviser and brother of its president. The billionaire Syrian-Qatari Al-Khayyat family, which has worked closely with the White House and Trump family members on property and energy projects, is also included. The DFC, which is part of the U.S. federal government and invests in overseas projects, is expected to take an equity stake of around 15% in the new company, two sources told the FT.
OFAC has extended the licenses for carrying out transactions with the international filling stations of Lukoil International GmbH as well as the company's Bulgarian assets until April 24, 2027.
When the sanctions were imposed, Lukoil was involved in projects in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, the UAE and the Republic of Congo. The company owns oil refineries in Bulgaria, Romania and the Netherlands, and has a chain of 2,500 gas stations in 19 countries. Across all of its international projects, it had proven oil and gas reserves of 1.345 trillion barrels of oil equivalent at the end of 2024. In the same year, it produced an estimated 3.9 million tonnes of oil with gas condensate and 16.2 billion cubic meters of gas at all of its international projects excluding West Qurna 2. Processing at the group's European oil refineries decreased 18% in 2024 to 13.5 million tonnes due to the sale of the ISAB Refinery in Italy in May 2023. Retail petroleum product sales totalled 4.2 million tonnes in 2024. Lukoil wrote off all investments in LIG and reported an impairment loss of 1.66 trillion rubles in 2025.
