Galnaftogaz Looking to Expanding its Network up to 350 Stations by 2009

A major Ukrainian oil products retailer Galnaftogaz (GLNG: U/R) intends to expand its OKKO chain to 350 stations, said Ukrainian News citing company’s presentation. According to the same source, Galnaftogaz plans to raise its market share up to 7.2% from 6.0% by the end of the year. Vladimir Nesterenko: At the end of October, Galnaftogaz had 189 OKKO-branded stations (+32 YTD), in addition to 37 non-branded. We are currently reviewing our forecasts, but it looks likely the company will underperform both our previous projections (219 stations) and its own year-old plan (258). We are decreasing our 2007 forecast to 195 OKKO stations. Given that over 10M07 only 32 stations came on line, launching 155 OKKOs next year (to reach the plan of 350) seems unrealistic.