Lukoil to Drill Five African Wells in 2013

Lukoil Holdings will drill five wells in Africa next year at a cost of $600 million, a senior company executive said Wednesday on the sidelines of the Energy Intelligence conference in Moscow.

Russia's second-largest oil producer will drill three wells in the Ivory Coast, one in Ghana and one in Sierra Leone, said Andrey Kuzyaev, president of Lukoil Overseas.

Lukoil has looked abroad to offset declining Russian production in recent years.