RusEnergy

29.09.2005 14:49 MSK MosNews - Getty Petroleum Marketing, the U.S. subsidiary of Russia's largest oil company Lukoil, has secured a $475 million loan, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported on Thursday, Sept. 29. The Bloomberg agency originally reported about the loan two weeks ago, quoting an unidentified banker involved in the deal. The banker said that the unsecured loan is being arranged by ABN Amro and Calyon. Half of the loan will be spent on developing deliveries of Russian gasoline to the United States. There the gasoline will be refined at oil refineries purchased by Lukoil, and brought up to U.S. standards. Afterwards the gasoline will be sold through Lukoil's gas station network. The Russian oil major controls 8 percent of the retail oil products market in the Northeast of the United States and is the region's third largest market player. In 2000 Lukoil bought the Getty gas station network for $70 million, and then added another 795 gas stations, which belonged to ConocoPhillips and worked under the Mobil brand. The second deal was made in 2004 and the sum of the purchase was $265 million. Analysts note that in the first seven months of this year the export of oil products from Russia grew by 43 percent, while the export of crude oil grew by only 10 percent. This situation is brought about by the fact that export tariffs for oil products are considerably lower than those for crude oil, although they also keep rising along with world oil prices.