RusEnergy

May 16, 2006 - The Mocsow Times - By Valeria Korchagina - Shareholders in Sibneft have voted to rename the oil company Gazprom Neft and move its corporate address to St. Petersburg, Sibneft said in a statement Monday. By Monday, the new Gazprom Neft logo had already appeared at the entrance of Sibneft branch offices in St. Petersburg. The company's headquarters could also eventual move to the northern capital, although only in several years, a Sibneft spokesman said. Sibneft is currently registered in the Omsk region, in Western Siberia, where most of its production takes place. Its headquarters are located in Moscow. The long-expected decision, taken at an extraordinary shareholders meeting on Saturday, follows gas monopoly Gazprom's acquisition of Sibneft for over $13 billion in October 2005. The move is also seen as a major victory for St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, who has been trying to lure big businesses and government bodies to the country's second-largest city. "There will finally be a big taxpayer in our city of 5 million," Matviyenko said Monday, according the city administration's web site. Gazprom will in the next few years build a new office complex on the shores of St. Petersburg's Neva River, Mativyenko said. Between 2003 and 2005, Sibneft paid between 8 billion rubles ($300 million) and 12 billion rubles in taxes each year to the Omsk region's budget, Omsk Governor Leonid Polezhayev said in an earlier interview, Interfax reported. Sibneft paid part of its profit tax to the regional coffers. The government is apparently working on ways to compensate the Omsk region for some of the pending losses, as is Gazprom. The Sibneft brand, however, is not destined to disappear completely. The logo and the name will be retained for Sibneft's retail operations and the company's filling stations.