June 2005

NK RussNeft OAO is planning initial public offering (IPO) which was announced by Mikhail Gutseriev at the press conference in Bryansk. "We are getting ready for IPO," - he said, pointing out that neither volumes nor dates were not yet set. M.Gutseriev emphasized that IPO is a step forward in the process of "natural formation of the Company". He also said that the volume of stock floatation depended on the composition of the Company’s assets. "We are constantly buying new assets. Having both production and refining assets is different from having only production assets,” – he stressed. As reported earlier RussNeft has plans either to build or to buy own refinery in the time period ranging from 6 months to two years. RussNeft President also announced that they were not going to pay out dividends in the nearest future in view of the fact that the development of the Company is still in process. M.Gutseriev said that as of today the turnaround of RussNeft is 3 billion dollars. "The idea of creating a vertically integrated structure looks promising so far," - he added. M.Gutseriev also emphasized that RussNeft shareholders had some merger proposals from a number of Chinese and western companies. "However we turned them down as we are a Russia's company," - he said.