Gazprom profits triple in Q2, before crisis hit

Russia's Gazprom said Tuesday its net profit almost tripled in the second quarter of 2008 as the world's largest gas producer reaped earnings from record commodity prices before the global economic crisis took hold.

But the numbers offer limited comfort with the company's stock down 71 percent this year amid plummeting oil prices.

The state-controlled behemoth's net profit ending June 30 soared to 300 billion rubles ($10.2 billion) from 103 billion rubles in the same period last year, Gazprom said in a statement referring to an unaudited earnings report.

Its bumper earnings came courtesy of oil prices, which dictate prices for other energy products. Oil was on its way to a record high of over $147 a barrel shortly after the quarter ended.

It is expected Gazprom's further 2008 earnings will come nowehere near the first-half bonanza, with year-end oil prices barely a quarter of the July high.

Net income in the first six months of the year rose 83 percent to 573.75 billion rubles.

Gazprom's sales in the first half of 2008 grew to 1.7 trillion rubles from 1.1 trillion a year earlier.

However, operating expenses, including the cost of oil and gas from Central Asia for resale, rose by 30 percent to 1 trillion rubles, the company said. Additionally, taxes on crude production also increased in that period, it said.

Total debt shrank from $84.5 billion to $69 billion in the first half of the year.

Gazprom said the debt shrank after the company in June sold part of its share in its subsidiary bank Gazprombank.

Gazprom's stocks gained 5 percent at the MICEX exchange on Tuesday to 108.6 rubles per share.

Shares in the world's largest natural gas producer have lost more 71 percent at the MICEX stock exchange since the beginning of the year amid a collapse in Russian shares and plummeting oil prices have shrunk.

(This version CORRECTS ADDS sales results in graf 5; Stocks in graf 11; corrects day)