July 21. Lukoil has purchased an Italian oil refinery, which will enable Lukoil to perform undisturbed oil supplies to the Balkan region, Lukoil head, Vagit Alikperov said at the meeting with Russian PM, Vladimir Putin. He said the Lukoil had acquired 49.9% of the oil refinery's shares for 1.3 bn euro, while the factory's management will be run on a parity basis. The oil refinery's capacity is 8 mn tons of oil a year. "This is good acquisition; the plant will fully operate on Russian crude. Therefore, we have assembled the complete chain: Russian oil, Russian oil refinery and our own retail network in the Balkans, which fully integrates with the oil refinery in terms of logistics", Alikperov said. Therefore, Lukoil may ensure undisturbed oil product supplies both from the territory of Russia and from its oil refinery in Italy, Alikperov highlighted. The Lukoil head asked the Russian PM to raise the issue of the prompt launch of the project with EU authorities. He highlighted that Italy had also acceded to the request. Putin supported Lukoil's initiative and said that this project would allow Lukoil to tap the European market.