Gazprom profits drop with its shares as final dividend not paid and as LNG replaces Russia's EU volumes
Gazprom, the Russian natural gas supplier hit by Western sanctions over the Ukraine invasion, saw its shares drop on the Moscow stock exchange after the board said the company would not be paying a dividend to shareholders as it reported a profits plunge.
Russian LNG and energy major Novatek reports 60 percent rise in revenues and soaring profits
Novatek, the Russian natural gas company and operator of Yamal LNG and the developer of the Arctic LNG II project, reported a more than six-fold rise in annual net profits as global prices soared and storage levels dropped.
The Moscow-based company posted 432.9 billion Russian roubles ($5.7 billion) of profits attributable to shareholders compared with 67.8Bln roubles ($893 million) of profits in the previous year.
Novatek is the largest independent natural gas producer in Russia and started up the Yamal LNG export plant in northern Siberia in 2017 to supply Europe and Asia and is currently building the second LNG joint venture on the Gydan Peninsula.
The company, listed on the Moscow and London stock exchanges, said total revenues and normalized gross income, including its share of joint ventures, amounted to 1,156.7 billion roubles ($15.23Bln) and 748.3Bln roubles ($9.85Bln), representing increases of 62.5 percent and 90.9 percent respectively compared with 2020.
Its upstream activities are concentrated in joint ventures in the prolific Yamal-Nenets Region, the world’s largest natural gas producing area, accounting for about 80 percent of Russia’s gas production and around 15 percent of the world’s gas output.
Price rises
“The increases in total revenues and normalized EBITDA were largely due to an increase in global commodity prices for hydrocarbons, as well as the launch of gas condensate deposits within the fields of the North-Russkiy cluster,” said Novatek.
The company explained that European and Asian natural gas markets were impacted by faster than expected recovery of demand after the Covid-19 pandemic, the declared energy transition policy, as well as weather factors and supply disruptions.
“All this caused storage level reductions in key consuming regions and a strong price rally in the second half of 2021,” it added.
Novatek’s natural gas sales volumes totaled 75.8 billion cubic metres, representing a marginal increase of 0.3 percent compared with 2020, though global prices soared.
“An increase in natural gas volumes sold on the domestic market completely offset a decline in natural gas volumes sold on the international markets,” explained the company.
“The increase in natural gas volumes sold on the domestic market resulted from the launch of additional production facilities, as well as higher demand from end-customers due to weather conditions,” added Novatek.
“The decline in natural gas volumes sold on the international markets was due to a decrease in LNG sales volumes purchased primarily from our joint venture OAO Yamal LNG, as a result of an increase in the share of Yamal LNG’s direct LNG sales under long-term contracts and the corresponding decrease in LNG spot sales to shareholders, including the Group,” it stated.
The Moscow-based company produces and sells LNG, crude oil, domestic natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and other petroleum products.
Novatek’s total hydrocarbon production increased to 626.3 million barrels of oil equivalent from 608.2 million boe in the previous year.
Total production amounted to 1.72 million boe per day versus 1.66M boe per day in 2020.
Gazprom profits jump as pipeline prices and volumes increase with Europe and Asia demand surge
Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company supplying pipeline gas to Europe and China in competition to LNG, returned to a nine-month profit after a previous loss as the value of sales more than doubled and sales of gas increased by 18 percent in volume with the start of the partial global economic recovery.
Gazprom boosts profits and natural gas sales to Europe even ahead of Nord Stream II commercial start-up
Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company supplying pipeline gas to Europe and China in competition to LNG, posted much higher first-half profits as volume sales of gas increased by 18 percent with the start of the partial global economic recovery.
Gazprom reports loss
July 15 (LNGJ) - Gazprom, the main pipeline gas competitor to LNG in Europe and China, said first-quarter gas sales revenues dropped by 24 percent to 1.73 trillion roubles ($24.52 billion) compared with 2.29 trillion roubles ($32.3Bln) in the same period in 2019. The company reported a first-quarter net loss of 116 billion roubles ($1.64 Bln), compared with a net profit of 536Bln roubles ($7.5Bln) in the 2019 first quarter.
Overall natural gas sales dropped by 13 percent to 138.1 billion cubic metres from 158.9 Bcm in the 2019 first quarter. Gazprom said pipeline gas sales to Europe and China dropped to 51.6 Bcm in the first quarter from 62.4 Bcm in the same three months of 2019.
