Russia’s largest privately-owned oil company LUKoil wants to hold a secondary public offering (SPO) for 13% of its stock on an Asian exchange and plans to get a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange during the year, LUKoil Vice-President Leonid Fedun told Kommersant business daily on Thursday.
“To my mind, it would be logical to hold the SPO on an Asian stock exchange. It is not a secret that today the main supplier of money is China. If it maintains its current growth rates, the yuan will start edging out the U.S. dollar with time. And we want LUKoil to be the first in the path of the money flow from China,” Fedun told the paper.
The shares which the Russian oil company plans to float in Asia represent a share package previously repurchased from U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips, he said.
“For the time being, however, our priority task during the year is to get a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange,” he said.
Now that ConocoPhillips has withdrawn from the company’s capital, LUKoil intends to focus on scientific developments and scientific discoveries to promote the company’s further growth, he said.
“The main problem confronted by all Russian oil companies is that they do not engage in the development of their own technologies as they wholly buy all technologies in the West,” he said.
Another priority area for LUKoil is the development of non-traditional energy sources, such as shale gas and other hydrocarbon reserves that were previously considered as unprofitable for production, he said.
MOSCOW, April 14 (RIA Novosti)