Russia’s oil major Lukoil is quitting a project in Saudi Arabia due to financial pressures, the company’s president has said.
Luksar, as the project is known, was 80% owned by Lukoil and 20% by Saudi Aramco. It was set up for exploration and development of Block A gas fields in the Kingdom.
“We’ve made a decision to quit Saudi Arabia, Saudi Aramco will take the wells we drilled. We’ve agreed that we will continue to be partners and will be coordinating our international operations,” Vagit Alekperov has said of the joint venture (JV) project with Saudi Aramco.
In March 2003, Lukoil launched operations, becoming the first Russian company to get access to development of Saudi oil and gas assets.
Alekperov had earlier said that Lukoil could quit Luksar due to ‘the project’s complicated economy’.
The Lukoil chief however added that the company is interested in joint projects with Aramco in future.
