RUSSIA - LUKoil Downstream Investments Abroad.

LUKoil Holdings (LH) was the first Russian oil company to move into the US market and acquired the retail chain of Getty Petroleum Marketing (GPM) in late 2000. It bought the company for $71m and in January 2001 took control of its operations. These consist of about 1,300 gasoline stations and tank farms in the north-eastern and mid-Atlantic US states, and a wholesale petroleum products distribution network. GPM became the first publicly held US company owned by a Russian firm. GPM was a remnant of the Getty Oil empire of the late J. Paul Getty. The stations have since been rebranded Lukoil-Getty with a red-and-white logo.

LUKoil group recently reported that the number of petrol stations it had in the US had risen to more than 2,000.

Vadim Gluzman, head of LH's US operation, was quoted in January 2001 as saying the company wanted to buy a major refinery anywhere between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to supply its Getty service stations. LUKoil-Getty is using its tank farms to store its Russian crude, which it is getting BP to refine.

(In 1997, LUKoil had moved into the US through a joint venture with Food Lion Inc. for supermarket forecourt petrol stations. But that experiment proved disappointing).

Gluzman January 2001 said in the company was weighing the purchase of a Canadian chain of about 300 service stations and a marketing firm in the US south-east. No progress on these has since been reported.