MOSCOW: Russia's biggest oil company Rosneft has increased the number of its domestic gas filling stations by 5pc after buying the largest private network operating in the north-western part of the country.
Rosneft, which before the deal owned around 2,900 gas filling stations in Russia, said earlier this week it has agreed to buy Petersburg Fuel Company with 141 gas filling stations and some other facilities it owns.
The Petersburg Fuel Company operates in St Petersburg, the country's second largest city, as well as in Murmansk, Pskov and some other towns in the north-west which borders Finland and the Baltic States, a popular tourist destination for Russian motorists.
Rosneft declined to comment on the amount of the deal, but analysts at Russia's biggest bank, Sberbank, estimated the deal at $200-250 million.
Two years ago Rosneft planned to split its retail petroleum business to sell part of it to China's energy company CEFC, sources told Reuters at a time, but the deal fell apart.
Sberbank analysts said in a note that the deal with the Petersburg Fuel Company may indicate that Rosneft decided to keep its retail business and has dropped plans to restructure it.
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