NK Rosneft’ OAO’s share price down, signs a five-year oil deal with BP Plc for $1.5 billion

The biggest oil producer in Russia – NK Rosneft OAO announced today that it stroke a $1.5 billion deal with BP Plc. According to the terms of the deal, Rosneft is to supply BP with crude oil and fuel over the next five years.

The Chief Executive Officer of NK Rosneft OAO – Mr. Igor Sechin said in the companys statement, which was cited by Bloomberg: The deal “allows Rosneft to support high profitability of its sales activities and acquire additional financial resources. Rosneft extends and strengthens its mutually beneficial cooperation with BP.”

According to Rosnefts statement, 12 million tons of oil products and crude will be paid by BP Plc in advance. The supplies are scheduled to start in July this year. This is the second major deal between the two companies since the CEO of Rosneft was put on the U.S. sanctions list. Six weeks ago, the two companies sealed another contract over joining forces to extract tight oil.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Chief Executive Officer Sechin also commented the deal with BP Plc, saying: “This transaction opens up new opportunities for both companies. It provides BP with a stable supply chain and guaranteed quality of oil products, and allows Rosneft to support high profitability of its sales activities and acquire additional financial resources.”

On the other hand, Mr. Bob Dudley, who currently occupies the position of a CEO of BP Plc, said in April that BP plans to continue its collaboration with Rosneft not only as a shareholder but also as a partner, despite the sanctions imposed on Mr. Sechin by the U.S. BP is the second-largest shareholder in Rosneft after the Russian state, holding a 19.8% stake.

Recently, Rosneft has been trying to raise funds by more and more pre-payment deals. This trend is considered able to spur the deteriorating relations between Europe, Russia and the U.S. According to Mr. Igor Sechin, pre-payments could amount to a sum larger than 100 billion dollars by 2017.

NK Rosneft OAO was losing 0.34% to trade at 248.40 Russian rubles per share by 12:57 GMT, marking a one year change of +11.21%.