MOSCOW, February 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia’s energy giant Gazprom, is not discussing acquisition of a stake of LUKOIL, Russia’s largest private oil company, in the National Oil Consortium, the company’s deputy chief executive officer Vadim Yakovlev told a news conference on Wednesday.

“We have not started a discussion, as we are happy with a 20 percent stake we own,” he said.

Russia’s National Oil Consortium owns a 40 percent stake in the joint venture with Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. that develops the Hunin-6 field, the oil reserves of which are estimated at 195 million tonnes. Investments into the project are estimated at $15 billion.

At the moment, Hunin-6 daily output totals 400 tonnes, Yakovlev said.

LUKOIL proposed the National Oil Consortium to buy its stake in the Hunin-6 oil development project in Venezuela. In early October 2013 Rosneft chief Igor Sechin told reporters his company was interested in buying LUKOIL’s stake in the National Oil Consortium, while Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov said his company received this offer from LUKOIL and would consider it.

Early this year LUKOIL chief Vagit Alekperov said in the event of Rosneft’s refusal to buy his company’s stake in the National Oil Consortium LUKOIL would eye an opportunity for selling it to other interested investors from Europe and Southeast Asia.

LUKOIL entered the National Oil Consortium together with Rosneft, TNK-BP, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz in 2009. Each company invested $200 million, getting a 20 percent stake in the project. Later Surgutneftegaz left the consortium. In October 2012 TNK-BP also wanted to withdrew from the project, but it was bought out by Rosneft that as a result, consolidated a 60 percent stake in the National Oil Consortium.