Lukoil Overseas appoints heads of offices in Oslo, Kyiv
MOSCOW. Jan 16 (Interfax) - Lukoil Overseas, which operates Lukoil's international upstream projects, has appointed Leonid Surguchev as head of its Norwegian office and Roman Petrashov as head of its Ukrainian office, Lukoil Overseas told Interfax.
Lukoil Overseas plans to open its office in Oslo within one to two months, and its office in Kyiv by the end of the first quarter of this year.
Surguchev has been working in Norway in various positions since 1998 - he was manager for field development at Petec, director at Petec Software & Services, and director and senior vice president at the IRIS research institute. Petrashov has worked for Lukoil West Siberia since 1999 as first deputy general director and chief engineer of Yamalneftegaz.
In August 2011, Lukoil passed prequalification for work on the Norwegian shelf. The passed prequalification assumes that the company can carry out work on the Norwegian shelf as an operator. In September 2011, Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov said that the company is looking at the possibility of participating in tenders for developing sections on the Norwegian shelf together with Norway's Statoil.
Norway is currently holding the 22nd round of licensing, which it plans to wrap up in the summer of this year. It accepted applications until January 11. The blocks that participated in the licensing round are mostly located in the border regions of Norway's continental shelf, in the Barents and Norwegian Seas. Lukoil Overseas told Interfax that the company does not plan to participate in this round.
At the beginning of last year, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers granted permission to Black Sea Gas (Chernomornaftogaz) and Lukoil to jointly develop and produce oil and natural gas on the Black Sea shelf.
