Gazprom Neft posts higher profits

Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia’s gas giant, Gazprom, said on Thursday that its profits for the first half of 2017 were 23.1% higher than during the same period last year.

At RUB 111 billion (USD 1.85 billion), net income was “supported primarily by improved efficiencies across all business lines as well as strong organic growth,” Alexander Dyukov, the chairman of the managing board of the company, said in a statement.

The news came days after Gazprom Neft’s larger rival, Rosneft, said on August 4 that its profits for H1 2017 were about 20% lower year-on-year, partly due to the global production cut agreement which was extended by a further 9 months in May. Net income attributable to the company’s shareholders stood at RUB 81 billion (USD 1.35 billion) in the first half of the year.

“The global hydrocarbon market conditions remain unstable with high crude oil and oil product pricing volatility,” Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said in a statement. “In such conditions, the Company keeps focusing on further operating efficiency improvement, including on the maximization of the existing assets synergy on the domestic and international markets.”

In other news from Rosneft, Reuters reported on Tuesday that the world’s largest listed oil company by output had effectively lent around USD 6 billion to Venezuela’s NOC, PDVSA, in pre-payments for oil deliveries through 2019. In the next few days, Rosneft also plans to purchase an unspecified stake in India’s Essar Oil, the report added. In a deal struck last October and approved by some of Essar Oil’s key creditors in June, a Rosneft-led consortium is to acquire 98% of the struggling refiner.