Page 125 - RusRPTMar21

9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.1 Oil & gas corporate news
· Gazprom
Gazprom enjoys 7.8% output bump in Jan-Feb 2021. Russian state gas exporter Gazprom enjoyed a 7.8% bump in production in the first two months of the year, on the back of very cold weather in Russia and across Europe. The company produced 89.9bn cubic metres of gas in January and February, according to preliminary data published on March 1. Its sales to the domestic market climbed 19.5% year on year to 68 bcm, while exports to the so-called Far Abroad, meaning Europe plus Turkey minus the countries of the former Soviet Union, soared 32.3% to 34.3 bcm. “Due to severe cold snaps and snowfalls, natural gas demand in Russia and Europe went up in February,” Gazprom said in a post on social media. “Against this backdrop, we continued to provide reliable gas supplies to our consumers.” Germany, Gazprom’s biggest gas customer, increased imports from the company by 32.9%. Growth was also seen in Turkey (+52.9%), Italy (+64%), Hungary (+85%), France (+26.7%), Poland (+36%), Bulgaria (+56.5%), Serbia (+52.2%), Romania (+54.5%) and Greece (+27.3%). Supplies to Turkey more than doubled y/y in February, Gazprom said. Turkish gas buyers scaled back Russian purchases in the early part of last year, as the supplies were uncompetitive next to LNG, given the oil indexation of prices in Gazprom’s contracts. The situation has now reversed, as the oil price collapse a year ago began to feed into Gazprom’s prices towards the end of 2020. A similar trend has been seen in many European markets.
Gazprom’s management has made a number of statements regarding the company’s financials, Interfax reports, with the key takeaways being as follows.
· A 50% payout and adherence to the dividend policy has been confirmed for the 2020 dividends.
· The company sees dividends as the key instrument for distributing cash to shareholders. It does not rule out a small-scale share buyback for management’s motivation programme (to be finalised in 2021), but it is possible that the treasury shares already owned by the company will be sufficient.
· At this moment, Gazprom is not considering expanding its 2021 investment programme, despite gas prices being better than budgeted.
125 RUSSIA Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com