RusEnergy

MOSCOW, December 9 (RIA Novosti) - Russian crude producer RussNeft will have its licenses for three West Siberian oil fields revoked from December 10, a business daily said on Tuesday citing a Rosnedra spokesman. Vedomosti said the mineral resources regulator had revoked the licenses after the company failed to comply with the terms of its license. RussNeft had also failed to meet deadlines on oil volumes; Rosnedra has declined to provide further details. The three licenses were held by a RussNeft subsidiary, Benodet Investments Ltd. Recoverable oil and gas condensate reserves at the fields amounted to 6.1 million metric tons, or 4.1% of the company's reserves. The company produced 227,485 metric tons of liquid hydrocarbons (1.6% of its output) at the fields in 2007. Neither the RussNeft vice-president, Eduard Sarkisov, nor a spokesman for En+, which is seeking to acquire RussNeft, has made any comment on the withdrawal of the licenses, the paper said. RussNeft Holding produced 14.2 million metric tons (104.37 million bbl) of oil in 2007. Its income calculated to Russian Accounting Standards totaled 119.5 billion rubles ($4.3 billion) in the first nine months of 2008, with net profits of 8.8 billion rubles ($314.3 million).