Rosneft Confident Can Continue to Expand in West

Russia's Rosneft is confident it will be able to continue its expansion in western Europe, the general manager of Italian refiner Saras said on Friday.

"Rosneft is confident it will be able to continue progress of expansion to the west," Dario Scaffardi said in a conference call with analysts on second quarter results.

Saras, controlled by the Italian Moratti family, is partly owned by Rosneft, with which it has a joint venture for trading and processing crude oil and selling refined products.

Last December, Rosneft agreed to buy much of Morgan Stanley (MS)'s physical oil-trading business.

Scaffardi also said he expected the decision by Italian major Eni to cut its refining capacity by over 50 percent to help the remaining European refiners.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; editing by Oleg Vukmanovic)