NNK sale of assets. NNK sold its first major asset

Recently it became known from various unofficial sources that E. Khudainatov is going to sell the Independent Oil and Gas Company (NOC).

Recently, from various unofficial sources, it became known that he was going to sell the Independent Oil and Gas Company ().

The information leak happened at the beginning of February 2017, and you can’t call it accidental.

The history of NOC is a litmus test of today's Russian reality.

It is probably difficult to call an independent NOC.

The situation cleared up a little when the actions of the NOC became clear.

Companies were collecting crumbs from the oil and gas table of the Russian Federation, buying up small and medium-sized companies with seemingly good assets.

What was probably worthless to buy Rosneft, settled in NOC.

There was nothing to give loans.

The common people assumed that when NOC turned into a relatively large VIOC, Rosneft would absorb it, as happened with the assets of Yukos, ITERA, and so on.

But under the current conditions, Rosneft probably won't be able to do it so easily.

Spiteful critics from the West, who previously expressed doubts about the transparency of the recent Rosneft privatization deal, went further, saying that some offshore company of the Cayman jurisdiction was involved in the Rosneft privatization deal.

Earlier, the parties to the deal honestly stated that they shared the share of participation equally, and V. Putin even decided to have an audience with them.

Against this background, the bank fails to provide a syndicated loan, because the participants in the credit pool are worried about the transparency of the transaction and do not give money.

In this situation, Rosneft simply does not have the money to buy out the unprofitable asset represented by NOCs.

And NOCs constantly need funds to repay loans, and the authorities will not tolerate this for a long time.

Is that why the leak happened to test the market?

The independent oil and gas company (NOC) of Eduard Khudainatov is put up for sale, the company's counterparty, a federal official, and two people close to potential buyers told Vedomosti. The NOC representative did not answer Vedomosti's questions. A person close to the company claims that the information about the sale is not true - “ active search There are no buyers."

They received offers to buy the company and showed interest in the Tatneftegaz asset (last year he asked to transfer it to management for 10 years " Bashneft »), « Rosneft", as well as Alexei and Yuri Khotin, two interlocutors of Vedomosti say. The deal may also be of interest to foreign investors, adds another. It was not possible to contact representatives of Tatneftegaz on Sunday, the representative of Rosneft declined to comment, and the representative of the Khotins did not answer questions from Vedomosti.

The head structure of NOC is Aliance Oil by Eduard Khudainatov. In 2015, its revenue was $2.2 billion, EBITDA was $318.3 million, and the net loss was $153 million. net profit– $116.4 million. At the end of September, the ratio net debt to EBITDA was 5.6 compared to 5.2 at the beginning of 2016. In 2015, the company spent $170.5 million on debt servicing, and $122 million in nine months of 2016, part of the interest payments was capitalized, the report says Aliance Oil.

Aliance Oil used to belong to Musa Bazhaev. But in 2014, he and Khudaynatov merged their assets. At that time, analysts estimated the assets of the joint venture at $4 billion, sources close to the deal - at $6-7 billion. Bazhaev had 60%, but in September 2014 he left the business.

How much the NOC can cost, the interlocutors of Vedomosti do not say. NOC could now be worth about $4 billion, estimates Sergey Vakhrameev, managing director of GL Asset Management. Since 2014, oil prices have dropped significantly, and the only refining asset of NOC, the Khabarovsk Oil Refinery, has been unprofitable since 2012, the expert points out. In 2015, the enterprise received 7.4 billion rubles. loss.

It is very difficult to evaluate NOC, since the main assets of the company were bought for borrowed funds, most of them are projects at an early stage of development, says Vitaly Kryukov, director of Small Letters. For example, in 2013, the company bought the Payakhskoe fields in Taimyr with reserves of 11 million tons of oil and condensate (in the summer of 2016, it became known that NOC failed to raise 100 billion rubles from the NWF to finance this project). In 2014, NOC bought the Saratov deposits in the Volga region and invested more than 2 billion rubles in them. and in December 2016 put into operation two fields (production began - 1 million cubic meters of gas per day), Interfax wrote. It is possible to talk about some value only after the projects are brought to their planned capacity and after the company deals with debts, Kryukov said.

Vedomosti's interlocutors are also not aware of the reasons for the search for buyers.

“Initially, it was clear that NOC would be sold at some point. It is a global practice to collect small assets, optimize them and sell them big player”, - says Raiffeisenbank analyst Andrey Polishchuk. The company would be of particular interest to Rosneft, Lukoil or Surgutneftegaz, he said. Now it is quite possible to agree on a good price with buyers, Rosneft, as the Bashneft deal showed, is ready to pay, Polishchuk admits.

VTB Bank is interested in expanding the number of shareholders of the Independent Oil and Gas Company, which is now owned by Eduard Khudainatov, an associate of Igor Sechin. NOC was buying assets before the oil price crash, now it's ramping up debt, postponing projects and loan repayments

Eduard Khudainatov (Photo: Alexey Druzhinin / RIA Novosti)

VTB is interested in expanding the number of shareholders of the Independent Oil and Gas Company (NOC), especially if they can attract new money, or know-how, or markets,” Andrey Kostin, chairman of the bank's board, told RBC. Now the company is owned by Eduard Khudainatov, who is considered an associate of the chief executive director Rosneft Igor Sechin. Khudainatov put NOC up for sale, Vedomosti wrote in early February. “Yes, we are aware. In principle, we are even interested in this,” Kostin told RBC. Khudainatov himself denied information about the sale to RBC in early February. “I cannot confirm this information,” he told RBC even after Kostin’s statement.

At the same time, NOC is looking for a strategic partner: we have many interesting and promising projects, both up-stream and down-stream, Khudainatov told Energy Insider.

“In my opinion, the company is very promising and interesting. But this is a growing company, and it needs investments to master the opportunities that it has,” Kostin explained. According to him, not only Russian but also foreign investors are actively interested in acquiring a stake in NOC. Whether any block of NNK shares was pledged to VTB, Kostin did not say. The NOC has no delinquencies, but the debts could be restructured, the banker said. VTB will continue to work with NOC, regardless of whether there is a deal, Kostin concluded.

Eduard Khudainatov, who is considered close to Rosneft President Igor Sechin, created the NOC in 2013. Prior to that, in 2010-2012, Khudainatov headed Rosneft, and then ceded this post to Sechin, having worked for some time as first vice president. NOC immediately began to buy small assets and mining licenses, and in 2014 Khudainatov bought his largest asset, Alliance oil, from the Bazhaev family. Khudainatov bought Alliance oil with borrowed funds, they wrote with reference to Kommersant and Forbes sources, this was confirmed by RBC and an acquaintance of Khudainatov. According to Kommersant and Forbes, the deal amounted to $3.5-5 billion, RBC's interlocutor says that the price was $4 billion. VTB was one of the creditors, Igor Sechin allegedly personally asked Andrey Kostin about this, Forbes wrote. VTB calls the lender and the interlocutor of RBC. The representative of the bank did not answer RBC's question. At the end of 2013, prior to delisting, Alliance oil was worth $3.7 billion, excluding debt, which was $1.6 billion.

NOC began buying assets when oil prices were at their peak, and almost immediately after the purchase of Alliance oil, in September 2014, prices collapsed. Back in June 2014, Brent cost $115 per barrel, and in December it broke through $60 per barrel. The volatility continues to this day, although the decision of OPEC, Russia and a number of countries to freeze production has stabilized prices above $50 per barrel.

As a result, due to problems with financing, the NOC postponed the development of the largest "greenfield" - the Payakhskoye field, Khudainatov said. In 2015, NOC was unable to repay $350 million worth of Eurobonds, but agreed with creditors to refinance. In the first nine months of 2016, NOC's debt grew to $2 billion, and this is a heavy burden for the company: the debt burden is almost 6 EBITDA. Lenders forbade NOC to increase debt, and the company announced cost optimization.

Most of NOC's business is in oil refining: in 2016, its only Khabarovsk refinery planned to process 4.7 million tons of oil, while its own production fell from 2.5 million to 2.3 million tons of oil. The refining margin in Russia fell in 2015-2017 due to the tax maneuver and falling oil prices, analysts and companies noted. Rosneft, for example, turned to the government with a proposal to provide tax incentives to certain refineries whose criteria include its own refineries and NNK's Khabarovsk refinery. Another problem of NOCs is the emphasis on hard-to-recover reserves, the development of which has become unprofitable at a low oil price. By 2018, NOC planned to produce 4.8 million tons of oil, more than half of which comes from hard-to-recover reserves.

The financial condition of the entire NOC is not disclosed, and it is impossible to evaluate the asset, says Andrey Polishchuk, an analyst at Raiffeisenbank. But Alliance oil has the lowest EBITDA margin in the industry, most likely due to the bias of the business towards refining, he argues. If Alliance oil is bought by a company that has enough of its own oil, profitability could immediately increase, the analyst concludes. The production assets of the NOC in Timan-Pechora may be of interest to LUKOIL, and the Khabarovsk refinery to Rosneft, which has a Komsomolsk refinery in the region, he argues.

the only Russian company, which is now buying up assets on Russian market, - Rosneft, but it seems to be already “staffed” and it needs to integrate already purchased assets, says Valery Nesterov, senior analyst at Sberbank CIB. European investors are not enthusiastic about Russian oil assets: sanctions are in place, and the risk of aggravating relations with Ukraine remains. Theoretically, Asian investors, in particular Indian companies, which have already assumed the risks of investing in Russia, can buy a stake in NOCs, the analyst says. Selling a stake in a separate NOC asset will be more difficult: the company has no high-profile promising projects yet, Nesterov concludes.

The owner of NOC Eduard Khudainatov created a new company, Saratovgazdobycha, reports. The main activity is the extraction of oil and associated petroleum gas. Why Khudanitov new company when he already owns NNK- Saratoneftegazdobycha? Unlike the established company, it already has licenses for hydrocarbon areas. It is very difficult to understand Khudainatov's oil and gas empire. He is the head of 9 enterprises and the founder of 10. The created "" is 99% owned by NNK-Razvitie, and that one is 100% owned by Eduard Khudainatov. Why such difficulties? If they exist, then those who create them are needed for something. One of the founders of "" is NGH-Nedry LLC, its contribution is 40 rubles. In turn, NNK Saratovneftegazdobycha is one of the founders of NGH Nedra with a contribution of 1,000 rubles. All this suggests that Eduard Khudainatov is stirring up something through his companies. Simultaneously with the appearance of information about the creation of a new company by Khudainatov, it became known that the main shareholder of the largest fuel supplier in the region, Saratonefteprodukt, was replaced. Instead of "", it became "RN-Regional Sales", the founder of which is 100% "RN-Commerce". Both the former and the new shareholder. There is definitely something behind these seemingly completely optional changes in the structures of Rosneft and NOC in the same period of time and in the same region. From the very beginning, experts suspected that NOC was created in 2012 not at all as a competitor to Rosneft, but as a secret assistant in the ongoing purchase of gas and oil fields.

Why "shine" yourself when there is Eduard Khudainatov? It is possible that the sites of NNK-Saratovneftegazdobycha will be transferred to Saratogazdobycha, and then they will be sold to Rosneft structures. With such a complex scheme of interaction between structures, as a result of the transaction, it will be possible to “cut” any amount. And the NNK brand will not officially appear in the deal. Vassal of Rosneft? In February of this year, information appeared that Eduard Khudainatov was selling the NOC he had created from scratch. However, the owner immediately denied the publication in the Vedomosti newspaper. The reason for such a rumor was that the development strategy of NOC, apparently, did not materialize. In 2014, NOC acquired its largest asset, Alliance Oil, from the family of Musa Bazhaev. After that, the company began to actively buy oil production licenses. But ... prices for it collapsed and this greatly affected financial condition NOC. Most of its debt was in dollars, and oil was sold for rubles. At the end of 2016, debt exceeded EBITDA by almost six times.

Apparently, this was the reason that the planned competition was actually reduced to cooperation. In 2015 - 2016, NOC supplied Rosneft with raw materials, which was more than the half-year revenue of Khudainatov's company. Rosneft became the main partner of NOC. It would seem not bad, but when production at NOC fields began to fall, some of Khudainatov's structures had to buy oil from other suppliers. If only to settle accounts with Rosneft. Apparently, these purchases were unprofitable for NOC, because no one sold oil below market prices. But it was even worse for Khudainatov not to fulfill the contract with Rosneft. He knew that very well, since he had worked with him for a long time. Rosneft used its position with might and main, bought up oil from small producers and exported it. Therefore, the NNC at low prices for oil eventually turned into a kind of appendage of Rosneft, and the FAS even at one time considered them affiliated companies. Maybe that's how it was originally intended? Or Sechin and Khudainatov could come to such an agreement after the failure of the NOC development strategy. Sechin is in a hurry to help? In the close cooperation of Khudainatov, who at one time was the head of Rosneft, and who invited him there and then replaced him in this post, there can definitely be mutual interest, which may have been formed and maintained for many years. And therefore it is not at all surprising that It was Sechin who came to the aid of Eduard Khudainatov. In April of this year, against the background of rumors about the sale of NOC, Rosneft acquired the Kondaneft company from it. The initial cost of the asset in 2014 was RUB 2.4 billion.

Kondaneft, owned licenses for Kondinskoye, Zapadno-Erginskoye, Chaprovskoye and Priobskoye oil fields. To develop only the first of them, it was necessary to spend . But public money, apparently, does not count. But he helped an old friend.

By the way, to purchase the assets of Alliance Oil to Khudainatov. It was he who persuaded the head of VTB Andrey Kostin to provide a loan, the amount of which could reach $ 4 billion. It is possible that Sechin did this on purpose. It was beneficial for him to have a spacer in the form of NOCs between Rosneft and the market.

Hudaynatov is looking for money?

In desperation, Eduard Khudainatov offered 25% of the NOC to the Qatari Sovereign Fund. And here again I did not guess. Just at this time, the fund was suspected of complicity in terrorism. And Khudainatov had practically no choice. Either become an accomplice too, or stop negotiations.

In general, the "muddy story" of cooperation and Eduard Khudainatov is still ongoing. And the end of the edge, and the edge is not yet visible to her. NOC, apparently, will have to play its role in Rosneft projects more than once. And Eduard Khudainatov has apparently already resigned himself to his role as a “Sechin gasket”.