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Lukoil, the country's largest independent company, has become the face of Russian business abroad. But can it be the next Exxon?
作者：Barney Gimbel
There are many things that simply can't be known about Russia's largest independent company, Lukoil. How did its president come to control the oil and gas giant in the first place? How do the founders get away with buying company assets through a bank they own? And, perhaps most important, can it survive if oil prices stay as low as they are?
AN APOLOGY: Since this story was published in Fortune's Feb. 2, 2009, issue, we have discovered that several passages were lifted from "The Triumph of the Quiet Tycoon," written by Peter Maass and published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on Aug. 1, 2004. Fortune apologizes to Mr. Maass and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
But one thing is clear about Lukoil: It's a company that mirrors Russia right now. Back in the summer it looked as though it was on top of the world. In less than 20 years after a clever young bureaucrat put it together from the remnants of the Soviet oil industry, the company had managed to become not just a global player in petroleum but also the face of Russian business abroad. Among the world's independent oil companies it controlled the second-largest reserves, behind Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500). It had operations in more than 40 countries. Its president was the first Russian citizen to win the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship. Americans did a double take when Lukoil's red and white gas stations started popping up on the East Coast a few years ago. The sight was perhaps not as jolting as a Chinese car on the New Jersey Turnpike would be, but it signaled to many - especially to the Russians themselves - the beginning of a new world order.
When the credit crisis took hold in the fall, Russians - and even some Western economists - thought it was mostly a U.S. problem. They thought the new Russia, an energy powerhouse that produces more oil than Saudi Arabia, would be spared. But when the prices of commodities, including oil, collapsed, so did Russia's economy. Economic growth, which averaged about 7% the past five years, may drop below 2% this year. Foreign capital continues to flee. The ruble is under pressure. And for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the threat of large-scale unemployment looms.
Lukoil finds itself short of cash and, some analysts fear, at risk of needing a government bailout. Its stock is down 68% since its peak last May - underperforming most of its international peers - and rumors of involuntary vacations have rippled through the company. The situation has gotten so bad that Lukoil's partner, ConocoPhillips, is expected to take a write-down as large as $10 billion on its investment in the company, analysts say.
No one doubts that oil prices will rise again - and that the spike this summer was only a foretaste of what will occur when the economy rebounds. When that happens, Lukoil may be the oil company best suited to take advantage. The reason is simple: Much of the world's remaining energy resources are located in countries off-limits to most Western oil companies.
"It's very difficult to see where Exxon or Shell or BP finds new oil in the next few years," says Mattias Westman, the founding partner of Prosperity Capital Management, a London-based hedge fund that owns $100 million of Lukoil stock. "The same cannot be said about Lukoil. They have the best chance of acquiring and developing more reserves and growing more than any other oil company on earth."
That's why Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov, a tough-minded former bureaucrat with a permanent scowl, still plans an ambitious expansion - albeit slightly toned down since the summer - and insists his company will soon be mentioned in the same breath as Exxon Mobil, Shell (RDSA), and BP (BP). The challenge, he says, will be surviving until then.