NEWS
Gazprom share surge puts value over $100Bln
London, Aug 16 (LNG journal)
- Gazprom, the world's No. 1 natural gas company that plans to supply LNG to North America for the next 50 years, saw its shares jump to a record high in Moscow and London after reporting a surge in net income.
Gazprom shares rose to the equivalent of $3.52 in Moscow , above 100 Russian rubles for the first time, to 100.38 rubles. The company's American Depository Receipts trading in London rose to a record $45. Gazprom now has a stock market value of more than $100 billion, but would be worth more given its huge reserves and potential profits.
Gazprom, which clinched its first LNG swap deal into the United States on August 8, reported net income grew by 41 percent to $3.12 billion for the first six months of 2005 compared with the same period a year ago. Sales revenue for the company, which supplies most of the former Soviet Union and other European countries with pipeline gas, advanced 36 percent to around $21Bln and sales income increased 44 percent to $5.26Bln.
Gazprom, which controls 25 percent of the world's natural gas reserves, carried out its first LNG deal earlier this month but as yet has no LNG facilities. Still, it is expected to become North America 's biggest LNG supplier in the years ahead.
By 2009, Gazprom wants to have its own LNG export terminal in the Baltic port of Ust Luga , near St. Petersburg , which would receive output from existing gas pipelines.
It also has a stake in the Royal Dutch Shell-led Sakhalin-2 project in the Russian Far East, which will begin massive LNG export shipments in mid-2008.
Gazprom's most ambitious LNG project will be to construct a liquefaction plant using natural gas from the giant offshore Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, in the Arctic .
Gazprom announced earlier this month that it had chosen nine companies to compete for a project in the Shtokman field with a price tag of at least $10 billion.
Foreign investors may also soon be able to buy up more of Gazprom. The Russian authorities announced on June 24 that all curbs on the trading of the shares will be lifted by the end of this year. Such a move is expected to lead to the company's value rising even more, analysts said.
The company is currently 50 percent owned by the Russian authorities. Less than 5 percent is held in ADRs listed in New York and London and foreign investment in overall Gazprom equity is currently capped at 20 percent.
Apart from the government's holding, the rest of the shares are held by Russian investors and are much less expensive than the shares listed overseas.
