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MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) Russian state oil firm Rosneft has repaid ahead of schedule a $1.34 billion loan from India's state oil firm ONGC which it took out five years ago to help fund their giant Sakhalin oil and gas venture.

The firm said on Monday it had repaid the loan, guaranteed by crude exports, because it was too expensive.

The move comes as Sakhalin-1 members, led by U.S. major ExxonMobil and including Japanese group Sodeco, are preparing to start large-scale oil exports but are still in dispute about the gas side of the $10-billion plus project.

Last month, Rosneft raised $10.4 billion in Russia's largest ever initial public offering to partly repay its debt to the state.

The firm has said it was left with around $2.4 billion cash and cash equivalent after the IPO.

''We decided to redeem the loan to boost the efficiency of our investments. We will do so by cutting interest on the debt and by increasing revenues from crude oil exports from the project to a large number of Asian clients,'' said Rosneft spokesman Nikolai Manvelov.

He said the loan was taken under Libor plus 3 percent, while Rosneft was currently able to borrow at Libor plus 0.65 percent.

He did not give the initial maturity of the loan.

REUTERS SBA GC1846