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Belarusnafta buys Russian oil and gas company

Belarusnafta Sibir, a Russian subsidiary of Belarusian state-owned oil company Belarusnafta, has purchased oil and gas company Yangpur from Russia's VTB Bank for 3.6 billion Russian rubles ($112 million), said Russian newspaper Izvestia.

Yangpur has licenses for oil and gas exploration and production in the Tyumen province in western Siberia. The company, which went bankrupt a few years ago, plans to produce 67,000 tons of oil, 64 million cubic meters of natural gas and 6,900 tons of gas condensate in 2013.

According to Izvestia, Yangpur attracted no interest from leading oil and gas companies.

The newspaper said that the company would likely sell gas to Gazprom.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka has repeatedly announced Belarus' interest in producing oil and natural gas in Russia.

"Why do Britons and Americans extract oil in your country and sell it in the market while you deny Belarusians access there?" Mr. Lukashenka told a large group of Russian provincial journalists in October 2012. "We consume 22 billion cubic meters of gas a year. Let us produce 10 billion [in Russia]. Maybe, this will be cheaper for us… There would be 10 billion cubic meters of cheap gas and 12 billion cubic meters of expensive Russian gas. This would be acceptable for us. The same could be done with regard to oil." //BelaPAN