Russia's Rosneft Invests $20bn in Itself

Russia's state oil giant Rosneft, plans to invest $20 billion over five years to transform itself into a rival to the oil industry's leaders, its chief executive said.

Sergey Bogdanchikov also forecast output would increase from 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) this year to more than 2 million bpd over the coming three years and hitting 3 million bpd by 2015, the newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Bogdanchikov said his company would look to make downstream acquisitions, but he did not go into detail, the FT said.

As for the $20-billion investment, the newspaper said it would be financed from internal resources and 70 percent would be earmarked for upstream operations.

Growth was seen in Rosneft's western Siberia, eastern Siberia and Sakhalin fields, the FT said.

Rosneft said it would expand to the scale of BP Plc and ExxonMobil Corp. by the end of the decade.