Faced with the need to raise as much as $45bn in cash to fund the largest nationalisation in Russian history, Rosneft is negotiating with oil traders to raise part of the cash through future oil export sales.

 

An industry executive said the state oil company has approached “the regular names in the industry” such as Vitol and Glencore as well as major oil companies with trading operations: Total, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, in an effort to raise billions of dollars in forward oil sales.

 

However, he said: “It is very early days in the negotiations – Rosneft is talking to big trading houses and major oil companies about pre-export finance deals.”

 

State-controlled Rosneft announced the purchase of TNK-BP in October, for $55bn, of which $45bn is to paid in cash for the two 50 per cent stakes held apiece by BP and AAR.

 

Alexander Burgansky, an oil and gas analyst at Otkritie, the Moscow-based brokerage, said it was “pretty reasonable” for Rosneft to try and raise additional money from oil producers and traders in the form of export contract-backed financing.

 

“It’s a very common way of raising funds – maybe not that common in Russia because Russian companies never needed it. But now Rosneft is in a situation where they need to explore every option of financing they can find.”

 

Pre-export finance deals, while common, are expensive for the oil companies as they lose control of some of their production.

 

Petrobras of Brazil, Sonangol of Angola and Pdvsa of Venezuela have all tapped Chinese banks for pre-export finance deals over the past five years. Industry executives said oil trading houses have in the past lent between $500m and $2bn over several years to state-owned oil companies in countries from Ghana to Kazakhstan in similar pre-export finance deals.

 

Rosneft has already agreed terms for a $30bn loan from a syndicate foreign banks, and $7.5bn of this funding is expected to be long-term. The company has also placed $3bn worth of eurobonds.

 

In addition to those forms of funding, Mr Burgansky suggested Rosneft could also receive money from its controlling shareholder Rosneftegaz following the sale of a 12 per cent stake in Rosneft to BP. The 12 per cent stake could garner $5.7bn, Mr Burgansky said.