At the end of what has been an exceptional period for us, Rusneftegaz held our annual awards ceremony in Moscow last week to recognize the achievements of our workforce over the past twelve months. In what was an enjoyable night attended by many of those associated with our organization, including senior staff, managers, directors and other stakeholders, we celebrated a year where we made strong progress towards realizing the objectives that we first published in 2015. Although it has been a timeframe without many notable highlights, we have continued to expand our enterprise internationally by pursuing opportunities available to us in North Africa, in addition to overhauling our web presence to befit a corporation of our caliber. Nevertheless, perhaps the most significant development in the preceding twelve months has been the expansion of our ongoing investment program, which we believe shall yield considerable growth in all areas of our business in the near future. In response to what has been an outstanding year for us, our Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Aleksandr Filyurin, gave the following remarks: 

“I would like to extend my congratulations to all the award winners, there were many excellent nominees this year, but all the awards have been rightly deserved. Each of them has been key in helping us make excellent progress this year, and we hope that soon we will be able to achieve all our current plans. To be direct with you, next year is going to be a very important year for us as a company. First and foremost, we intend to mark the twentieth anniversary of the formation of Rusneftegaz in an appropriate way, but we also have big plans in terms of our international expansion plan. It is very exciting. The board and I are forever grateful to everyone who works for this company, and we hope that they all stay here and help us realize our ambitions as a company.” 

During the evening itself, our esteemed colleague Ivan Kovalchuk was named as our employee of the year, which he earned for his impressive work implementing changes on each of our oil production sites. For a six-week span, the engineer researched the most suitable variable-frequency drives for each of our pumpjacks, and was later instrumental in upgrading these components in a timely manner. In much the same vein, our young employee of the year award was bestowed upon Anatoliy Kuznetsov, who graduated first in his class and registered a perfect score in nineteen of his practical assessments. Whilst such phenomenal results are considered extraordinary amongst those recorded by his peers and predecessors, it is perhaps not as illustrious as the career of Pavel Kulikov, whose imminent retirement was also marked in the course of the proceedings. In a long and distinguished time with us, he joined Rusneftegaz in 1999 shortly after our formation, and since then has become one of our longest-serving employees. He will be fondly remembered by all his contemporaries, particularly those of whom he shared the cakes that his wife would regularly bake for him and his companions. We hope that he enjoys his newly discovered free time, and that all those who remain with us have a fruitful year ahead. As an organization, we are eternally indebted to all our personnel for their endeavors, and will continue to acknowledge the efforts of all those who exceed our expectations for the foreseeable future.

Following the announcement earlier this year, Rusneftegaz can finally unveil its updated website, with our company also transitioning to a new web address at rusneftegaz.com. The new site, which replaces rusneftegaz.ru, has gone live with immediate effect and has been created to fundamentally improve user experience. All information that was previously published on the previous domain has been migrated to the new website, which will continue to be updated with the latest news and information regarding our operations. 

Overall, the design of the site has received been radically overhauled and modernized, in conjunction with a plethora of new practical and aesthetic features. This includes a redesigned homepage, which now features a summary of our latest news articles, boxes displaying our latest production data and links to our latest reports. There have also been substantial changes to both the production and contact pages on the site, both of which now display clear and coherent maps regarding the locations of both our production operations and headquarters, respectively. Management has also opted to provide a greater quantity of financial and economic data on the refreshed site to impart greater transparency and enable any relevant public disclosure in the future. 

The new site was built and designed internally by our Director of Information Technology, Mikhail Kuznetsov and his team, whom will now take responsibility for both the management and maintenance of all digital operations after many months of hard work. The most significant change made by Kuznetsov is that the website is now available in both the Russian and English languages, befitting an organization that is seeking to expand its global presence. Whilst there are no plans to add any additional languages in the immediate future, a mobile version of the website is now available in congruence with the desktop revised offering for those users who are using devices. 

By updating its internet presence, Rusneftegaz will now be able to publish information more easily, allowing for more regular updates and enhancements to ensure interested parties are quickly and consistently informed with the latest news for the company. By transitioning to the new rusneftegaz.com domain and by presenting an English language option, the company is aiming to publicly demonstrate its ambition to become a more international and cosmopolitan organization, and accurately represent its future growth prospects. In response to the development of the new website, Chief Operations Officer Andrey Uraev stated: 

”We have been looking into the idea of developing a new website for a number of years now; this project even predates my time with Rusneftegaz. I am happy to say that we are very pleased with the results; it is a far better reflection of the direction we are heading in as a company. I personally would like to thank all of those who have worked into this project; they have put in a great deal of effort into modernizing our web presence.” 

​As a component of the change in the main company web address, it can also be announced that all company email accounts will be converted to the rusneftegaz.com handle in the months ahead. A phased and orderly changeover has been planned to ensure no outages in service, and all staff will also be able to send and receive electronic mail via their existing email address for the foreseeable future. With regard to these developments, any queries from personnel should be directed to their respective manager.

Following the cessation of the latest session of the Egyptian-Russian Joint Ministerial meeting, Rusneftegaz can reiterate the desire expressed by the Russian delegation to expand our cooperation with both the companies and Ministries of Egypt. Although our organization did not participate in the talks directly, we eagerly anticipate working with officials and our counterparts in the North African country for the mutual benefit of their petroleum industry. Since our interest in conducting operations abroad was first established more than eighteen months ago, we are pleased that the Government of the ancient nation has become increasingly receptive to foreign corporations working on their territory. Over the past two decades, our organization has accumulated the resources and expertise necessary to partially facilitate the new investment required to rejuvenate and revive hydrocarbon production in the country, which is one of the largest net exporters of refined products in the world that is not a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, otherwise known as OPEC. In spite of the fact a considerable percentage of their oil reserves are depleting and being depleted, Rusneftegaz maintains the capacity to supply a comprehensive range of goods and services that are suited to, and derive from, our extensive experience operating in the extreme climates and conditions of Western Siberia. However, the Arab nation continues to possess considerable reserves of crude yet to be extracted, and therefore Rusneftegaz will also actively consider and participate in tenders for both oil and gas exploration, in addition to supplying equipment to hydrocarbon production companies. Thus, we are prepared to collaborate with Egyptian businesses in comprehensive partnerships to assist the development of one of the largest fossil fuel sectors on the African continent, with Deputy Chief Executive Officer Aleksandr Filyurin commenting: 

“Firstly, we must thank all the members of the Russian delegation at the meeting, who continue to work their hardest to help us fulfil our long-term aim of international expansion. We must also thank all the members of the Egyptian delegation who have worked with us on our international expansion plans over the past couple of years, and will continue to work with us, hopefully long into the future. Egypt, like all the other markets we have considered entering over the past two years, is an exciting market for us to be potentially entering, and I hope that we will be able to announce what we are planning to do sometime soon.” 

Rusneftegaz is continuing our pursuit of growth internationally across a broad range of countries and territories, including in both Algeria and Iran, where talks remain ongoing. Not only does this encompass locations where we may begin extraction, particularly with our proficiency in working on challenging wells, which is particularly relevant in Egypt, but also where we could commence new undertakings. For instance, our management is currently pursuing the acquisition of new electrical generating capacity, either in Russia or aboard, in conjunction with a new international petroleum trading business that will be based at a global hub for our expanding activities. Should there be any further updates regarding our business in Egypt or any other country; we shall endeavor to make a prompt announcement at an appropriate time.