Gazprom's H1 net profit more than tripled, to $10.9 billion

Gazprom, a gas giant owned by the Kremlin, announced on Thursday that its net income for the first half of this year had more than tripled compared to a year ago. It now stands at more than 10 billion roubles. This is due to increased gas exports as well as cost control.

Gazprom suffered a loss of $7 billion, its first since 1999. This was due to a decline in its gas sales to Europe, which used to be its primary market.

Famil Sadygov, Gazprom's deputy CEO, said that the company's core earnings for the period January-June rose 19% on an annual basis to 1.459 trillion Russian roubles. This was due to improved oil trade as well as a surge in gas exports to China.

The dividend was paid on the basis of adjusted net profit for six-month period, which reached 779 billion Russian roubles.

Gazprom reported a net profit of 389.7 bn roubles for the second quarter of 2008, compared to a loss in the same period of 18 bn roubles.

Russia has been diversifying its trade to avoid the West which has imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russian businesses and individuals due to the conflict in Ukraine. It has also cemented its ties, particularly with China, with Asia.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller stated earlier Thursday that the company increased its natural gas exports from China by 37% during the first eight-month period of this year. (Reporting and editing by Toby Chopra, Jan Harvey, and Vladimir Soldatkin)

(source: Reuters)