Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft plans to slash its debt to $15 billion by 2010, its president said yesterday, effectively setting a target of doubling operating profit in four years.Rosneft has previously said it plans to have a one-to-one ratio between its debt and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) by the end of 2010.

Its 2006 Ebitda was $7.3 billion, but this year it has greatly expanded its operations by buying assets at the bankruptcy auctions of its collapsed rival Yukos.

“By 2010 Rosneft plans to lower its debt to $15 billion,” Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov told the annual meeting of the company’s shareholders.

He also said a Eurobond which Rosneft plans to issue within months would have a maturity of no less than 10 years.

Bogdanchikov did not confirm when the Eurobond issue would take place or how much it would raise but a source familiar with the firm’s plans said it was considering starting the roadshow next week.

Rosneft had debts of $13 billion at the start of 2007 and has since raised a further $22 billion loan from a consortium of international banks to help finance the purchase at auction of assets from Yukos.

Rosneft said earlier it had received $9.2 billion owed to it by Yukos, whose former chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year jail term in Siberia.

Posted: 07|1|07 at 10:00 am. Filed under: Auction News.