Oil Line in Russia Completed

Despite Boris N. Yeltsin’s political troubles, two Ventura County companies have successfully taken major steps in separate oil-related deals in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Both firms--Oxnard-based Benton Oil and Gas Co. and Oil Country Manufacturing Inc. of Ventura--say they have encountered no new hurdles in connection with the turmoil besetting Yeltsin’s Russian regime.

Benton has completed a 37-mile pipeline that will carry oil from western Siberia to Russia’s main east-west pipeline network.

The pipeline will carry oil from a new field that Benton and two Russian partners are developing 2,000 miles northeast of Moscow.

“We expect oil to start flowing through the line in the third quarter of this year,” said Gregory S. Grabar, Benton’s manager of corporate development.

Alex Benton, the Oxnard company’s chairman and chief executive, added that the project’s on-time completion “demonstrates that the company’s Russian operations have not been affected by the recent political instability in Russia.”

Benton paid the entire $6.5-million cost of the line, which has a capacity of 70,000 barrels daily.

Benton is part of a joint venture, Geoilbent Ltd., which is developing the North Gubkinskoye field. The field covers 60 square miles and has estimated reserves of 300 million barrels. Including the pipeline, Benton has invested $8.7 million in the venture since the partnership was formed in December, 1991.

The other Ventura County firm, Oil Country, has received contracts for $5 million worth of equipment that will be used in restoring abandoned Siberian oil fields.

The deals will dramatically boost Oil Country’s revenues, which in the past several years have averaged between $2 million and $3 million a year.

“And we expect our sales to double again in 1994,” says Ray Kennedy, vice president of marketing and sales.

Kennedy left last week for a return visit to western Siberia, where he will seek more contracts for Oil Country’s products, which are used in replacing old, non-working well rods. In addition to being sold in the former Soviet Union, the equipment is sold throughout Europe and South America, Kennedy said.

Kennedy, like Benton, said Russian officials and business people have remained cooperative toward Western firms.

He said Oil Country, founded in 1982, has 40 employees and will soon hire additional machinists and welders.

“We’re working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to fill these orders.”