UPDATE 1-Russia LUKOIL sees '07 output growth down to 2 pct

(Adds more quotes, figures)

By Tanya Mosolova

MOSCOW, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Russian oil major LUKOIL (LKOH.MM) sees its hydrocarbon production growth slowing significantly this year and may revise its future output growth targets, a senior company official said on Friday.

Andrei Gaidamaka, the head of LUKOIL's investment department, said hydrocarbon production is likely to rise by 2 percent this year after a 12 percent increase in 2006.

"We are not revising our production growth plans at the moment, but there might be somewhat of a delay," Gaidamaka told Reuters.

He added that LUKOIL, in which U.S. ConocoPhillips (COP.N) owns a 20 percent stake, might review its 10-year annual production growth target of about 5 percent by the end of this year.

Gennady Krasovsky, head of LUKOIL's investment relations department, said this year's production growth was affected by the sale in April of a 50-percent stake in its Kazakh unit, Caspian Investment, formerly called Nelson Resources.

He also said LUKOIL's gas output was hit by gas export monopoly Gazprom's (GAZP.MM) urge to smaller gas producers to cut the fuel's production to help handle excess gas after an abnormally warm winter.

LUKOIL said earlier in November its total hydrocarbon production reached 2.18 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the first nine months of 2007, up 2 percent year-on-year.

Output growth rates have been gradually slowing from the 7 percent in the first quarter of 2007 and 4 percent in the first half of the year. Krasovsky said LUKOIL still had a chance to catch up with its long-term targets.

"We still have new projects, we will finally launch Timan-Pechora (in northern Russia), we will start a new project in Uzbekistan in December. We will continue growing," he said.

LUKOIL said last year it would invest more than $100 billion over the next 10 years to double oil and gas production to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) and increase refining capacity by more than 70 percent to 2 million bpd by 2016.

EXPANSION THWARTED?

LUKOIL is also continuing its quest to acquire refining assets abroad, despite the political obstacles that Russian companies often face, top executives said.

"We are getting ready to acquire new refineries abroad and we're looking at projects in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Rotterdam area and also the United States," Chairman Vagit Alekperov told Reuters on a visit to Baku, Azerbaijan.