MOSCOW, Dec 25: Russia will raise duties on oil exports to around 333 dollars per ton from February 1, a 21 per cent hike, a finance ministry official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.“The tax will probably be around 332-33 dollars a ton,” said Alexander Sakovitch, cited by the Ria Novosti news agency.

The current duty is 275.4 dollars (191.11 euros) a ton, set on Dec 1. Russia revises its oil export duty every two months.

Meanwhile, Russian mid-sized oil firm Tatneft expects this year’s growth in its reserves to exceed production, the company said in Moscow on Tuesday.

“The growth in our reserves in 2007 is expected to reach 34 million tons,” Russia’s sixth-largest oil producer said in a statement.

Through the first eleven months of the year, Tatneft produced 23.6 million tons of oil and gas condensate.

As of Nov 1, Tatneft had 79 licenses for hydrocarbon exploration, three of which it received this year.

Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said on Monday the growth in Russian oil reserves in 2007 will total 500 million tons, and will also be up on the country’s production for the year.

Last month it said it had allocated 12 fields with heavy bitumen reserves, which it would work jointly with oil major Royal Dutch Shell, under a deal signed in September.

The structure of the venture, the planned investments and costs would be announced in the first or second quarter of 2008.

Tatneft is controlled by the government of the Tatarstan republic, located in Russia’s Volga region.

SHARE OFFERING: Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom has bought 46.6 per cent of a supplementary share offering by wholesale generator, securing a 17 per cent stake, OGK-6 said on Tuesday.

Gazprom paid 20.999 billion roubles ($849 million) for 5.526 billion shares, priced at 3.8 roubles each, as part of capital raisings being held by generating companies spun off from Unified Energy System (UES).

The share issue will dilute UES’s stake from 93.4 per cent.

The full offering of 11.85 billion shares was not taken up by Gazprom, and a second strategic investor was not found to join the issue.

When state-controlled power monopoly UES is wound up next July 1, Gazprom will increase its stake in OGK-6 to 42.9 per cent through stake swaps.

Gazprom is poised to dominate two out of the six national wholesale generating companies, or OGKs, being created under reforms to introduce competition and raise investment for the world’s fourth-largest power network.

The gas giant is also buying the two regional power generators serving Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia’s largest cities. Critics say the market reforms could be undermined by Gazprom’s emerging dominance in the power sector.—Reuters