In April of 2010, ConocoPhillips sold 4.644 million shares of Lukoil at a total price of USD 274 million. At the end of March, the American company owned 851 million shares of Lukoil. A month later, the company’s share of ownership of Lukoil decreased to 19.89 percent.

According to the accounting data of ConocoPhillips, the company’s interest in Lukoil is worth USD 6.709 billion. The real market value of the stock, however, is about USD 9.645 billion.

The plans of ConocoPhillips to reduce the stake in the Russian oil producer by 10 percent over the course of the next two years were announced during the first quarter of the year.

Altogether, the profit of ConocoPhillips in quarter one, 2010 went up 160 percent, reaching USD 2.1 billion. Lukoil also benefitted from the operations of ConocoPhillips. Experts estimate that over USD 387 million of Lukoil’s profits came from the company’s affiliation with the American oil producer. This figure represents actual gains received in the last quarter of 2009.

The program that ConocoPhillips devised for shedding a 10-percent interest in Lukoil envisions the U.S. company’s repurchase of its own stocks valued at USD 5 billion from the Russian oil producer.

In the first quarter of the year, the production of ConocoPhillips stood at USD 1.83 million barrels of oil equivalent.