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Oil price at any level comfortable for Rosneft, CEO says

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said that the company will work on increasing its market share if oil prices drop
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin Sergey Bobylev/TASS
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin
© Sergey Bobylev/TASS

MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/. Oil price at any level is comfortable for Russia's Rosneft, the company's CEO Igor Sechin said in an interview with Kommersant FM radio station.

"Any price," he said in response to a question on what oil price is comfortable for Rosneft. "We manage risks. If prices fall, we will work on increasing our market share," Sechin added.

The Rosneft CEO noted that if oil prices fall, the company will try to tackle it effectively. "The question of market share is very serious, we will try to maintain and increase it," Sechin said. He earlier noted that the current fall in oil prices is connected with uncertainty around Iran.

"In fact, the first important thing is to maintain market prices. Secondly, this needs to be discussed. I think that the period of time until March 31 will be devoted to preparing universal solutions, not just manual control," Sechin said.

He noted that fair prices have been set at Rosneft gas stations which "were calculated in accordance with Energy Ministry's directives and recommendations." Sechin expressed confidence that government measures on stabilizing Russia's fuel market will allow to contain fuel prices.

The Rosneft CEO also said he considers as very important the suggestion for every oil company in Russia to send at least 17.5% of their output to oil refineries for the domestic market.

"We extract around 520 mln tonnes of oil annually in the country. We [oil companies] understand very precisely the task set by the president - to saturate the retail market with accessible fuel priced in accordance with economic conditions. What does this mean? [In Russia] we consume 90 mln tonnes of oil products. This is exactly 17.5% of the general output. This means that if we saturate the market with this volume, there will be no risk of a deficit," he noted.