Output increases for Lukoil

One of the world’s leading vertically integrated oil & gas companies, OAO Lukoil Holdings, announced that its total oil and gas production rose 4.3% to 2.21 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the first 6 months of 2007.

Crude oil production rose 4.1% to 48.53 million tons (44 metric tons), an average of 1.981 million barrels a day. Natural and associated gas output rose 6.1% to 7.03 billion cubic meters (6.4 billion metric tons).

Lukoil was taken over by OAO Rosneft as the nation’s biggest oil producer, after the state-controlled company bought production and refining assets of the bankrupt Yukos oil company in liquidation auctions earlier this year. Rosneft currently produces over 2 million barrels per day.

Lukoil recently installed a base leg of the fixed offshore ice-resistant off-loading terminal (FOIROT) on the bottom of the Barents Sea (a part of the artic ocean located north of Norway and Russia) meant for the Varandey Oil Export Terminal (VOET). The FOIROT is an important element of the VOET, which is being constructed by LUKOIL on the Barents Sea coast in the Nenets Autonomous District.