Lukoil Selling Lithuania, Latvia Assets on Anti-Russia Sentiment

(Bloomberg) -- Lukoil PJSC has decided to sell its filling stations in Lithuania and Latvia after relations toward Russia worsened in the Baltic nations, according to billionaire Chief Executive Officer Vagit Alekperov.

“Right now our assets are for sale in Lithuania and Latvia, where there is fairly serious anti-Russian sentiment,” Alekperov said in an interview on Russian state television Rossiya 24. Russia’s second-largest oil producer has already sold assets in Estonia.

The three Baltic states have clashed with Russia politically since breaking free of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago, joining the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a move that the Kremlin sees as encroachment by the alliance.

Lukoil has not seen a negative impact on its Turkish business as tensions soar after Turkey downed a Russian bomber near the Syrian border, Alekperov said. The Russian government isn’t going to ask Lukoil to sell assets in Turkey and didn’t ask the company to sell the Baltic assets, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Bierman in Moscow at sbierman1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net Torrey Clark.