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Probe targets Russneft units



By Upstream staff 

Russian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into licence violations at two subsidiaries of the country's fast-growing oil company Russneft, the prosecutor general's office said today.

Prosecutors said the Russneft units, Nafta-Ulyanovsk and Ulyanovskneft, which develop a number of deposits in Russia's Volga region, had exceeded allowed production volumes to maximise profits.

"Heads of the companies, whose main business is producing and refining crude oil and oil gas, have bloated the quotas set by the licences for subsoil use," they said in a statement.

They added that sales of oil produced by Nafta-Ulyanovsk in breach of its licence amounted to seven million roubles ($262,700). Ulyanovskneft earned about 2 billion roubles by exceeding its quota.

Russneft declined to comment.

The privately-owned 280,000-barrel-per-day producer was created by its president Mikhail Gutseriyev with the help of Swiss-based oil trader Glencore in 2003 and has been actively buying oil producing and refining assets since then.


Wednesday, 15 November, 2006, 08:45 GMT  | last updated: Wednesday, 15 November, 2006, 08:45 GMT

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