Newly formed company "Petrol-Lukoil" plans to open 1,250 gas stations

Joint Slovenian-Russian company "Petrol-Lukoil", founded last week, plans to open 1,250 gas stations on the territory of Central and Southeast Europe.

The company, in which Slovenians have share of 51%, while Russians have 49%, should realize income of 4.5 billion EUR and profit of 75m EUR according to the first estimates.

The headquarters of the company will be in Ljubljana and it will be managed by the Slovenian experts. Slovenian Government and Russian oil company "Lukoil" will prepare some concrete suggestions for privatization of the only Slovenian refinery "Nafta Lendava" by the end of the year 2006.

The agreement on cooperation in the privatizaton of the refinery was signed at the end of August by Slovenian Minister of Economy, Andrej Vizjak, and the President of "Lukoil" Vagit Alkperov. Slovenian Government sells its share in company "Nafta Lendava" and seeks partner who would enable further development to the refinery.

Vizjak is of the opinion that Russian "Lukoil" is exactly that kind of partner, however, it is not known how much "Lukoil" is ready to invest in the refinery.