Washington, 22 October. The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has extended until 21 November a licence, due to expire on 22 October, that allows negotiations and contingent contracts with Lukoil for the sale of LUKOIL International GmbH, which owns the company's foreign assets, InfoTEK reports.
A day earlier Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian-American contacts on the sale of the assets were under way: "There are indeed Russian-American contacts on this. In this case the licence can be extended without any difficulty."
Lukoil announced the sale of its foreign assets after it came under US sanctions in October 2025. The US Treasury did not approve a deal with the trader Gunvor; in January 2026 Lukoil agreed to sell LUKOIL International GmbH to the US firm Carlyle, but in early October Carlyle was reported to have pulled out. The assets, initially valued at about $22 billion, have attracted more than ten bidders, including ExxonMobil; the Financial Times wrote that US billionaire Todd Boehly had secured the backing of the US government and of brokers from Gulf states linked to Donald Trump's family. Separate licences for the day-to-day operations of LUKOIL International and its Bulgarian subsidiaries were extended by the US Treasury on 16 October until 24 April 2027, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
What it means: Washington has given another month for talks on selling Lukoil's international empire: after Carlyle's withdrawal there is no buyer, and the sale itself has become part of Russian-American contacts.
Who benefits: Lukoil, which keeps the right to negotiate, and the bidders for the assets. For Kazakhstan, the projects Lukoil takes part in matter: OFAC authorised operations relating to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Tengizchevroil and Karachaganak under a separate licence, GL 124B, with no expiry date, so their operations do not depend on this extension.
Background: The US Treasury imposed sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft on 22 October 2025; since then OFAC has repeatedly extended the licences for negotiations on selling LUKOIL International, each time for a short period.
List of sources used: InfoTEK, Ukrainska Pravda, Paul, Weiss, OFAC
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
