Russia’s No. 2 oil producer Lukoil said on Thursday it had agreed to sell most of its foreign assets worth a total of around $22 billion to U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group pending approval from the U.S. government.
Lukoil said that it had agreed with Carlyle to sell its unit LUKOIL International GmbH, which oversees the company’s foreign assets. The total foreign assets of Lukoil are valued by analysts at about $22 billion.
“The agreement signed is not exclusive for the Company and is subject to some conditions precedent such as procurement of necessary regulatory approvals including permission of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for the transaction with Carlyle,” Lukoil said.
Lukoil and Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft were sanctioned by the U.S. last October in what Washington said was a response to slow progress in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
The sanctions are part of the U.S. President Donald Trump aim to force Russia to agree on a peace deal to end the conflict in Ukraine, the most deadly European war since World War Two.
The U.S. Treasury has blocked two attempted deals so far, first between Lukoil and Swiss trading group Gunvor in October and a proposed share swap engineered by Xtellus Partners, the former U.S. arm of Russian bank VTB, in December.
The U.S. Treasury had given Lukoil until February 28 to sell its global portfolio.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Olesya Astakhova; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)