Lukoil-Ukraine is putting 22 filling stations and two oil depots in Ukraine up for sale, according to information on Russian company Lukoil's (RTS: LKOH) website.

The majority of the filling stations being sold are located in the Dnepropetrovsk (six) and Kyiv (five) regions. Two filling stations each are being sold in the Lviv, Cherkasy, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kharkiv regions. In the Kherson, Zhitomyr and Odessa regions, the company is selling one filling station each.

Lukoil-Ukraine is also planning on selling two oil deposits in the Lviv and Kyiv regions.

In addition, Lukoil Odessa Oil Refinery has put up several facilities located on its territory up for sale. It is selling two administrative buildings, a dispatch room, a storage facility, a warehouse and a domestic building with a laundromat and dry cleaner. The refinery is also selling storage units and an automobile transport factory.

Back in October 2010, Lukoil halted production at the Odessa refinery due to low work efficiency, which was linked to the situation on Ukraine's petroleum products market and with changes to the oil deliveries scheme.

At the beginning of April, the Ukrainian government and the owners of Ukrainian oil refineries signed an addendum to a memorandum that designated processing volumes at refineries. The Odessa refinery was required to process 1 million tonnes of oil, with 500,000 tonnes of light petroleum products. However, the refinery did not confirm these volumes. After the document was signed, Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov said that he considered the Odessa refinery's launch unlikely without a resumption in the scheme for oil supplies to the refinery via pipeline.

Owners of refineries in Ukraine, including TNK-BP (RTS: TNBP), which also shut down its Lisichansk refinery, are insisting on protective duties for petroleum products in order to prevent dumping from other countries, primarily Belarus.

Lukoil Odessa Oil Refinery, which is part of the Lukoil group of companies, operates the Odessa refinery, which has a design refining capacity of 2.8 million tonnes a year.

In May, Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash announced his intentions to acquire an oil refinery and a filling station chain. "We are planning to acquire an oil refinery and a filling station chain, but I can't yet say which enterprises," he said.

Ukraine has six oil refineries, but only one is currently operating - the Kremenchug Oil Refinery (Ukrtatnafta in the Poltava region).

Eb

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(Originally published July 6, 2012, in Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire.)