The U.S. Treasury Department has authorized operations with Lukoil until the end of April 2026

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Business FM on the partial extension by the US Treasury of operations with LUKOIL's foreign assets until the end of April 2026:

"This is an expected decision, since the deadlines that were initially set and even extended until December 13 did not imply the possibility of a real agreement, much less the completion of transactions. Such transactions require months of study, especially since we are talking about assets of countries with different legal regimes, with different requirements, and regulatory plans. Therefore, even from the point of view of coordination with government agencies, it took several months to work. At the same time, it takes time to agree on the terms of the transaction itself between the companies, especially if there are several of these companies. If we are talking about the assets being sold in some packages, one package is conditional, these will be European refineries and gas stations, which companies from the United Arab Emirates claim, and the main producing assets in Iraq and a number of other countries will be sold separately. There are very specific assets like gas production in Uzbekistan, minority participation in major projects in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and so on. The asset structure itself is diversified and complex, which requires significant time to prepare any transaction for their sale. Therefore, I am not sure that there will not be a new deadline postponement, because even the end of April does not look like a deadline that can definitely be fulfilled in this case. It is possible that there will be a new extension, but this is a normal practice for the US Treasury Department."