Vagit Alekperov, CEO of LUKOIL Photo: courtesy of LUKOIL

Russia's second largest crude oil producer LUKOIL is still proactively pushing forward to get listed in Hong Kong although it has been confronted with some challenges, the company's CEO Vagit Alekperov said at a press conference held in Beijing Monday, a move to attract more investors and expand its businesses in Asian markets, especially in China.

LUKOIL has listed shares in Russia, the UK, the US and Germany so far.

"Our investors are also very interested in listing on stock exchanges in Asia," Alekperov said.

As far as back in June 2012, Financial Times reported that the Russian crude oil producer was considering to get listed in Hong Kong in 2013, but has not made much progress so far.

"Currently, the only one obstacle for us to list shares in Hong Kong is a lack of an agreement, which curbs Russian enterprises from directly listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange," Alekperov said.

Alekperov also noted that the Russian oil producer expected to increase exports of crude oil and gas as well as lubricant oil to China.

"LUKOIL's business target in China is a win-win solution for both of the two countries," Lin Boqiang, director of the Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times Monday.

Lin thought knocking over the obstacles during the process of cooperation is only a matter of time, since "companies of the two countries are highly depending on each other."

China has exceeded the US to become the world's largest oil net importer in September, the US Energy Information Administration said in a report on October 8. China's oil consumption outstripped domestic production by 6.3 million barrels per day while the US gap was 6.13 million barrels per day.

LUKOIL has set up a cooperative relationship with Chinese oil enterprises. In 2007, it signed an agreement on strategic partnership with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's largest oil and gas producer by market value. The two companies also have jointly participated in a project for international natural gas transportation in Uzbekistan.

Alekperov said LUKOIL expected to cooperate more with Chinese companies in Central Asia and the Middle East areas.