Rosneft's Budget Based on $50 Per Barrel Oil Price

Russia's top oil producer Rosneft is basing its budget for this year on an average oil price of $50 per barrel, the company's Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin said on Wednesday.

"For 2015, we are using a conservative scenario - an average oil price of oil at $50 (per barrel)," Sechin said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin to which journalists were invited.

"This will confidently allow us to implement our investment programme."

He added that Rosneft's hydrocarbon proven and probable reserves stood at 129 billion barrels as of the end of 2014 and that the company saw its hydrocarbon production last year rising by 4.6 percent to 252 million tonnes of oil equivalent.

Oil production last year came to 205 million tonnes, he said.

Sechin also said that Rosneft sold some $93 billion on the domestic foreign exchange market last year.

"This is our contribution to the stabilisation of the forex (market) of the country," Sechin said.

The Russian rouble lost more than 40 percent last year, most of it in the second half of the year, suffering from a rapid decline in oil prices and sanctions imposed on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis.

Late last year, many Russian companies were accumulating foreign currencies until in December, the Russian government ordered exporters to bring their foreign exchange reserves down.

Sechin also said that Rosneft had transferred three trillion roubles ($44.58 billion) to the federal budget last year

"We will continue this trend in 2015," he told Putin.

($1 = 67.2975 roubles)

(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)