TNK-BP Plans Increasing by 20% Domestic Sales of Bitumen

Road builders and the construction industry are the main consumers of bitumen of TNK-BP. The shipments are executed by a network of official distributors in more than thirty regions of Russia.
“Our strategy targets the needs of the end consumer. Due to the use of specially equipped trucks TNK-BP can guarantee that the quality of the product is preserved during the whole delivery process from the refinery to the end consumer”, Eldar Verdiev, Bitumen Performance Unit Leader, said.
TNK-BP developed and introduced custom—made standards of health, safety and environment for trucks used by its distributors compliant with quality preservation requirements. This allows road transportations of bitumen to distances exceeding 1000 km with minimal temperature losses.  
In 2009, TNK-BP became the biggest seller of bitumen in Russia despite reduced demand in the road building sector and despite a general slide by 30% in the bitumen production industry. In 2009, the volume of bitumen sales of TNK-BP amounted to 824,000 tons, decreasing by 24% as compared to 2008 and representing 28% of the total domestic sales of bitumen. In 2009 we started to manufacture a new bitumen product BV 50/70 compliant with European quality standards and launched a new bitumen loading rack at the Yaroslavl refinery (owned on parity basis by TNK-BP and Gazprom neft).
TNK-BP owns modern bitumen trucks designed to meet all international safety requirements and quality preservation standards. As of 2009, the number of bitumen trucks of TNK-BP amounted to 230, of which 90 vehicles are owned by the company’s official distributors.              
TNK-BP is Russia’s third largest oil company, 50% owned by BP and 50% owned by the AAR Consortium (Alfa Group, Access Industries and Renova). TNK-BP also owns close to 50% of another Russian oil and gas company, Slavneft. TNK-BP accounts for approximately 16% of Russia’s production (including its share of Slavneft). SEC proved reserves (life of field basis) were 8.586 billion boe as of December 31, 2009.