Vagit Alekperov, who has a 15 percent stake in LUKoil, denied speculation that he or other major stakeholders were planning to exchange their holdings for stakes in Conoco to help the U.S. firm build up its holding.
"We are not going to swap our shares," said Alekperov, who has a fortune of around $10 billion, based on LUKoil's market value of $65 billion.
Speculation has circulated in the market in the past months that Conoco was seeking to take its holding in LUKoil to 25 percent and that LUKoil's managers might help it do so.
Alekperov also said LUKoil had suspended a project to build a refinery in Turkey due to poor economics and would expand its refinery in Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas instead. Burgas's capacity will rise to 10 million tons per year from 7.5 million tons per year now, Alekperov said, without giving a time frame.
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