Hungarian MOL may buy assets in Russia

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL negotiates on creation of a joint venture or acquisition of assets in Russia, the company’s executive vice president for geological exploration and production Alexander Dodds reports. He didn’t name a company, with which the negotiations are conducted, but said that if the purchase takes place, the MOL’s production in Russia will increase more than 2 times.

MOL owns sites at two fields in Russia, their reserves make up 75 million barrels; the oil production in March reached 8 000 barrels per day. By results of 2014, 14% of all reserves and 8% of the company's production fell on Russian assets. By 2018, MOL plans to increase its daily oil production to 170 000-180 000 barrels from the current 104 000 barrels. The company is going to do this partly due to the organic growth of existing assets, in which it plans to invest a little less than $1 billion this year, partly due to acquisitions, Dodds said.