Page 18 - bne_newspaper_May_24_2019

Eastern Europe
May 24, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
CEO of Russia's Gazprom says Nord Stream could drag into 2020
The CEO of Russian natural gas giant Gazprom Alexei Miller admits that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany via the Baltic Sea could be delayed, with the launch possibly suspended from the end of 2019 into earliest January 2020, Tass reported on May 19. However, other reports say the delay could be a lot more serious and extend into the middle of 2020.
As of May 15, a total of 1,241 kilometre of pipes or 50.6% of the pipeline's both lines were laid. But, as reported by bne IntelliNews, while previously Gazprom officials expressed confidence that the pipeline will be completed by the deadline of December 2019, last month the message changed to a more cautious outlook of "seeing chances of completion of Nord Stream 2 this year."
"Four fifth of capital costs needed for the pipeline’s construction have already been funded. Even if there are some problems, it should be understood that they would delay the project’s terms very insignificantly," Miller said in an interview with
the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on the Rossiya-1 TV channel, as cited by Tass.
Gazprom is rushing to complete the pipeline before the start of 2020 prior to the expiry of the gas tran- sit agreement with Ukraine. Delays in construction of Nord Stream 2 would force Gazprom to re-nego- tiate the transit conditions. Should the necessary permits not be secured by August 2019, completing the pipeline in time is unlikely.
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Russia's advertising market slows to 4% growth in 1Q19
Advertising spending in Russia in 1Q19 stood
at RUB111bn ($1.7bn), the growth of the ad market slowing down to 4% from 13% for the same quarter of 2018, Kommersant daily reported citing the data of Association of Communication Agencies of Russia (AKAR) on May 21.
Internet advertising continued to outperform the market at 18% to RUB51.5bn, but also slowed down from 22% seen in 1Q18. TV advertising declined by 6% to RUB42bn. Last time a decline in TV ads was registered in 2015 following a sharp ruble depreciation in December 2014.
"We can say that the advertising market has finally caught up with the actual economic situation," Sergey Veselov of AKAR commented, adding that given the real income decline of 2% seen in the first quarter, 4% growth of the ad market was "decent". Veselov also attributed steady growth
in the market seen in 2018 to introduction of new technologies.
Russia's largest internet majors Yandex and Mail. ru also reported a decline in advertising revenues, to 18% of RUB27bn for Yandex and to 19.3% to RUB7.3bn for Mail.ru.