MOSCOW: Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft is to return to the county's domestic bond market after a two-year absence with a programme worth 1.071 trillion roubles ($16.6 billion), the company said on Thursday.
Rosneft said the money raised might be used for foreign projects, new upstream business as well for planned refinancing of outstanding debt.
The bonds issued under the programme would have a maturity of up to 10 years. Rosneft, which is under Western sanctions due Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis, faces limits on raising funds outside Russia.
A large Rosneft bond issue at the end of 2014 coincided with a steep slump in the rouble. Russia's central bank declined to comment on Thursday on the possible effects of a new Rosneft bond programme on the country's money and forex markets when contacted by Reuters. In December 2014, Rosneft had issued 625 billion roubles of bonds in the domestic bond market.
This caused volatility in domestic money markets, which had expected the company to use the money to buy foreign currency. The company said at the time that proceeds were not used to buy foreign currency. In January 2015, Rosneft placed another 400 billion roubles in domestic bonds.
It has not been active in the domestic bond market since then. Rosneft said in a statement the latest bond programme would be conducted in separate issues taking into the account the timing of investments and planned refinancing.
A Rosneft spokesman declined immediate comment on when first bond issue might take place and the amount.
The company also said its subsidiaries would be able to buy its bonds as part of the programme. Rosneft also said its board has also approved Gazprombank as the arranger for the bond issue and it also might buy up to 173.2 billion roubles in Rosneft bonds. A Gazprombank spokesman was not available for immediate comment.
Under a state privatisation plan, Rosneft is to buy a 19.5 percent stake from parent company Rosneftegaz in a deal worth around 700 billion roubles. Russia's budget should receive funds from this privatisation by end-2016.
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