Page 134 - RusRPTNov23

9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.1 Oil & gas corporate news
● Gazprom
Russian gas giant Gazprom’s board of directors approved a new version of the investment program for 2023, its volume was reduced by 334bn rubles to 1.966 trillion rubles due to changes in macroeconomic indicators and market conditions, the company said in a statement on October 24. “The total financing of the investment program for 2023 will amount to 1,965.66bn rubles, 334.34bn rubles less compared to the original program approved in December 2022,” the statement read. Deputy CEO Famil Sadygov said that the planned amount of Gazprom's reserve fund for the end of the current year has been increased to 385bn rubles, which will strengthen the company's budgetary position for the next period. Gazprom has included in the new version of the budget a reduction in revenues from gas sales, but the total effect of optimizing operating costs will amount to more than 1 trillion rubles in savings, Sadygov said.
State natural gas giant Gazprom again topped the list of Russia’s most profitable companies compiled by Forbes, making RUB1.3 trillion ($13bn) profit in 2022, down by 40% year on year. Notably, as followed by bne IntelliNews, Forbes confirmed the deterioration of transparency and financial disclosure since Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. At least 30 companies that could qualify for the profitability rating have not published their financial statements for 2022. These were primarily holdings from the metallurgy and chemical industries. Forbes expects Russia’s largest state-controlled bank Sberbank (Sber) to become the leader in terms of profit in 2023, having already earned RUB1 trillion in 8M23.
Other major oil and gas companies such as Rosneft (profit for the first half of 2023 was RUB652bn), Lukoil (RUB565bn) and Yamal LNG (a joint venture between Novatek gas majors and foreign investors) could also top the list in 2023, Forbes suggests.
Due to the absence of metallurgical holdings from the list and a drop in bank profits, mineral fertiliser producer Phosagro made it to 10th place from 23rd a year earlier, with net profit rising 42% to a record RUB185bn in 2022 thanks to higher fertiliser prices.
Gazprom Neft has not revised oil refining plans for this year due to export constraints in Russia and plans to keep it at the last-year level, CEO Alexander Dyukov told reporters on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week. "It will be in conformity to last-year refining. If deviations occur, they will
134 RUSSIA Country Report November 2023 www.intellinews.com