MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's No.2 oil producer Lukoil <LKOH.MM> has started the first stage of the $3 billion (2.28 billion pounds) share buyback programme it announced earlier this year, acquiring an initial 390,816 shares, the company said on Tuesday.
Lukoil plans to spend at least $1 billion acquiring its own stock by the end of next year, with the full buyback programme running until the end of 2022.
The company said that in the first stage of the programme it had bought depositary receipts between Sept. 12 and Sept. 14 for $67.96 per receipt, spending a total of $26.56 million on the London Stock Exchange and CBOE Europe.
The programme, part of a policy aimed at distributing capital to shareholders, was included on a list of the company's strategic initiatives outlined late last year.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Oksana Kobzeva; Editing by Jan Harvey)
