Sanctions saga continues

United States rejects Lukoil bid from Xtellus

Ook deze raffinaderij in Kazakhstan valt onder de te verkopen Lukoil-bezittingen. Shutterstock, 2025

Lukoil saw bread in a takeover bid from US financial group Xtellus, but again the Trump administration is putting its foot down on a deal. The Treasury Department does not like the proposed financial operation.

Although in late October the United States launched a new sanctions package against Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft that required the former to divest its foreign assets, the US government continues to reject any concrete bid. According to Reuters news agency, it would also brush off the table a bid by US financial group Xtellus, although Lukoil was keen on it.

Xtellus had put its foot next to Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Abu Dhabi group International HJolding Company, Hungarian MOL, and US private equity player Carlyle which had previously expressed interest in parts of the Lukoil empire worth a total of $22 billion. Instead of an ordinary takeover bid, Xtellus had proposed a rather complex but cashless operation in which it would swap US-owned Lukoil securities for the company’s foreign assets. According to one Reuters source, both parties had already signed a sale agreement when the Trump administration’s Treasury Department informed the group that it did not have permission to make such manoeuvres with securities subject to sanctions.

Many US investment firms hold Lukoil shares that were frozen, and written down, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Xtellus’ idea was to return those shares to Lukoil in exchange for the foreign holdings, then sell them to energy players, thus repaying the investors. So that plan is off for now. The US extended the deadline for the sale of Lukoil’s gas stations, refineries and other assets last week. The sale should now be done by 17 January.

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This article was automatically translated from the Dutch language original to English (British).

Author: Matthieu Van Steenkiste

Source: MobilityEnergy.com

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