Russneft to pay debt in the amount of $2.3 billion through to VTB till 2023

This was reported by the newspaper Vedomosti on Wednesday with a reference to the message of the rating agency Moody's. On Tuesday, the latter confirmed the rating of Russneft at the level of B2, outlook is negative. It also reported that at the end of 2014 the total debt of the oil company made up 254.7 billion rubles that then was $4.5 billion. By the end of May of this year, it increased to $5.6 billion. At the same time, at the end of last year, the debt of RussNeft to VTB and VTB Capital was 87 billion rubles or $1.6 billion, and by the summer it grew to $2.3 billion - due to the fact that certain obligations of Mikhail Gutseriev, the owner of Russneft, to VTB were converted in the debt of the oil company.

Now the date of the loan repayment was postponed from 2019 to 2023, the Vedomosti reports. At the same time until March 2018, the oil company will have to pay to VTB only $40 million per year, and after this time - $500 million. Moody's indicates that the latter sum is greater than the amount of the Russneft’s free cash flow. However, the rating agency believes that in the medium term, the restructuring will allow the oil company to achieve a more balanced structure of the debt and the volume of liquidity.