The beginning of 2010 saw the execution in Baghdad of the Development and Production Agreement at West Qurna 2 field. The document was signed by the Iraqi State Oil Company South Oil Company and the Consortium of Contractors represented by the Iraqi State Company North Oil Company (25%), ОАО LUKOIL (56.25%) and Norway’s Statoil ASA (18.75%). The term of the agreement is 20 years with a possibility of 5-year extension. In the spring of 2010, ConocoPhillips made the decision to sell its 20% stake in LUKOIL within a two-year period. In its turn LUKOIL decided to buy out the greater part of this stake. The Company started the elaboration of a new development concept and strategy.

Other significant events of that year were: discovery of considerable hydrocarbon reserves at the Dzata structure in the shelf area of Ghana in the Gulf of Guinea; successful bidding, jointly with the American company Vanco International, for exploration and development of two blocks in the Rumanian sector of the Black Sea; commissioning of a chlorine and caustic soda production unit at the Ukrainian enterprise Karpatneftekhim, and also a catalytic cracking complex at OOO LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez.

LUKOIL signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Skolkovo Foundation for the Development of the Center for Research and Commercialization of New Technologies.

A group of LUKOIL specialists received the RF Government’s Science and Technology Award for developing and implementing a system of innovative executive and methodological solutions and technologies ensuring involvement, on an integrated basis, of unclaimed reserves and resources of oil and gas into development. RF President Dmitry Medvedev awarded LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov with the Order of Service to the Country, 3rd grade, for a major contribution to the development of the oil and gas complex and for long-lasting conscientious work.

Signing of contract in Baghdad	RF President Dmitry Medvedev awarded LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov with the Order of Service to the Country, 3rd grade