Oil major LUKoil's oil and gas reserves rose 4 percent in 2003 to 20.06 billion barrels of oil equivalent from 19.3 billion a year earlier, the energy giant said on Tuesday. The firm said it narrowed the gap with U.S. ExxonMobil, which tops the list of the world's biggest private firms by reserves, due to new discoveries and acquisitions in Western Siberia and Russia's North, but remained the world's No.2.

"We have new projects in Azerbaijan, Columbia and Iran and if any of these projects hits it big, we will significantly increase our reserves," LUKoil CEO Vahid Alakbarov told reporters.

LUKoil said the reserve increase confirmed Russia as one of the few places in the world where oil majors can still book huge reserves. In other regions oil firms may be forced to revise their reserves after Royal Dutch/Shell slashed its own estimate by 20 percent this year. "The time of easy reserves is over and [international majors] will all come to Russia one day," LUKoil vice president Leonid Fedun told reporters.

LUKoil's archrival in Russia, Yukos, said last week its reserves rose 16 percent in 2003 to 13 billion boe under U.S. Security Exchange Commission rules, and by 6.6 percent to 16 billion boe under the less strict rules of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

LUKoil's figures are compiled under SPE rules and the company said it would work to report under SEC rules next year.

The head of oil major BP John Browne said this week Russia would be behind a huge boost in BP's reserves in the years to come. He said local vehicle TNK-BP would account for more than half of BP's global portfolio after it boosts reserves to 17 billion boe or even 30 billion from the current 6.1 billion.