HOUSTON -- OAO Lukoil announced Monday that it is negotiating to acquire a chain of European filling stations from U.S. partner ConocoPhillips, the Associated Press reports. In the United States, ConocoPhillips is trying to offload nearly all of its company-owned retail stores.

Russia’s top oil producer, Lukoil is to purchase the Jet network of about 380 filling stations that operates in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Finland, company vice president Leonid Fedun said. “We aren't releasing the cost of the deal for now; it's a topic of negotiation,” the Interfax agency quoted Fedun as saying.

Phil Blackburn, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, acknowledged the talks with Lukoil "regarding various European service-station assets, but the negotiations have not yet concluded." ConocoPhillips owns roughly 20 percent of Lukoil, the Associated Press reports.

If the deal goes through, Lukoil's international retail sales would increase by roughly 20 percent. This year, Lukoil is forecast to sell 7.4 million tons of gasoline. Since 2000, Lukoil has bought more than 2,000 filling stations in the northeast U.S. and targeted the European refining and retail market.

Last week, ConocoPhillips said it would sell 830 U.S. retail gasoline stations, 330 of which are company owned and operated, as part of a previously announced divestiture plan intended to raise $3 billion to $4 billion by the end of 2007. The company will continue to sell its gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel in America via approximately 10,000 outlets, the majority under the independently owned Phillips 66, Conoco or 76 brands.

NACS spokesperson Jeff Lenard told the news service that major oil companies like ConocoPhillips have tended to exit the retail side of the business in recent years in large part because profit margins are small and expenses have risen. Some divestitures also have resulted from mega-mergers of the major oil companies. NACS estimates that only about three percent of U.S. retail fueling outlets are owned and operated by one of the major oil companies.

“The bottom line is there's not much money to be made at the retail level from gas sales,” Lenard told the Associated Press. To compensate for tighter profit margins on gasoline, retailers have beefed up their in-store offerings to include gourmet coffee, better food and ATMs.