UPDATE 2-Russia's LUKOIL boosts H1 crude output 4 pct

* H1 crude oil output 1.98 mln bpd, or 48.63 mln tonnes

* H1 hydrocarbon output up 2 pct yr/yr to 2.22 mln boe/day

* Crude output boosted by South Khylchuyu deposit

* CEO sees output rising 17 percent by 2020

(Recasts with CEO comments, previous MOSCOW)

ASTRAKHAN, Russia, Aug 17 (Reuters) - LUKOIL (LKOH.MM), Russia's second-largest oil producer, boosted crude production by 4 percent to 1.98 million barrels per day in the first half of 2009, the company said on Monday.

In a separate development, the LUKOIL CEO Vagit Alekperov said he expected the company's oil output to rise 17 percent by 2020 from 96 million tonnes last year.

LUKOIL said in a statement total production of hydrocarbons available for sale rose 2 percent year-on-year to 2.22 million barrels of oil equivalent in the first six months of 2009.

Crude oil production, which in tonnes totalled 48.63 million in the first half, was boosted by output from the South Khylchuyu field in the Arctic. Production at this deposit, which came on stream in 2008, reached almost 3.2 million tonnes.

Natural and petroleum gas output available for sale totalled 7.36 billion cubic metres in the first half, the company said.

CASPIAN SEA GROWTH

LUKOIL sees the Caspian Sea as one of its top growth regions. It has discovered six deposits in the area from 1999 to 2005. It has said it will be able to produce 240,000 barrels per day from only two of them, Korchagin and Filanovsky, by 2016.

LUKOIL and Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM) set up a 50/50 venture in 2003 as part of the Russian-Kazakh agreement on splitting the northern part of the Caspian Sea.

The LUKOIL CEO told reporters the company planned to bring Korchagin on stream next year, and Filanovsky in 2014.

"On the whole, we will increase our (oil) output by 16 million tonnes by 2020, while natural gas extraction will rise by around 13 billion cubic metres," he said.

"For this we will need some 150 billion roubles ($4.73 billion) of investments only for the North Caspian, some 100 billion roubles for the Central Caspian and the project we are implementing together with Gazprom," Alekperov added.

LUKOIL also said its share of output from international projects rose 26.2 percent to 2.35 bcm, while output in Russia fell 23.4 percent to 5.01 bcm due to a decrease in purchases from Gazprom.

Refinery throughput rose 10.4 percent year-on-year to 29.97 million tonnes in the first half of 2009. In Russia, throughput rose 0.3 percent year-on-year, while throughput at international refineries rose 51.2 percent. (Reporting by Robin Paxton and Denis Dyomkin; editing by James Jukwey)