MILAN (Reuters) - Russia's Rosneft (>> Rosneft' NK OAO) is confident it will be able to continue its expansion in western Europe, the general manager of Italian refiner Saras (>> Saras SpA) said on Friday.

"Rosneft is confident it will be able to continue progress of expansion to the west," Dario Scaffardi said in a conference call with analysts on second quarter results.

Saras, controlled by the Italian Moratti family, is partly owned by Rosneft, with which it has a joint venture for trading and processing crude oil and selling refined products.

Last December, Rosneft agreed to buy much of Morgan Stanley's (>> Morgan Stanley) physical oil-trading business.

Scaffardi also said he expected the decision by Italian major Eni (>> Eni SpA) to cut its refining capacity by over 50 percent to help the remaining European refiners.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; editing by Oleg Vukmanovic)

Stocks treated in this article : Morgan Stanley, Saras SpA, Eni SpA, Rosneft' NK OAO