Net income probably declined 3 percent to 132 billion rubles ($5.1 billion) from 136 billion rubles a year earlier, according to the median estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales probably rose 6 percent to 536 billion rubles as prices increased at home and in neighboring countries.
``While natural gas prices have remained strong year-on- year, the positive effect was likely canceled by the contraction of gas deliveries across all Gazprom's markets except Russia, as well as by a challenging cost environment,'' Oleg Maximov, an oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog in Moscow, said in a note yesterday.
State-run Gazprom pumps more than 80 percent of Russia's natural gas and is the country's sole exporter of the fuel. Gazprom depends on foreign sales for most of its profit. The government has pledged to end caps on domestic prices, which are regulated to help rein in inflation. Russia boosted prices for industrial users at home this year and for neighboring countries including Ukraine and Belarus.
European gas deliveries declined 1 percent to 38.8 billion cubic meters in the second quarter from a year earlier, while prices were probably little changed at about $258 per 1,000 cubic meters, Maximov said. Domestic consumers used 60.4 billion cubic meters of fuel, 1 percent more than a year earlier, while the average domestic price probably rose 21 percent to $49.80, according to Maximov.
Costs probably rose because of the accelerating pace of inflation and an increase in the price at which Gazprom buys gas from Central Asian countries for resale, Xavier Grunauer, a London-based analyst for Nomura International Plc, said in a note on Nov. 20.
Gazprom gas said it may announce earnings as early as today. Following is a summary of analysts' estimates, with figures in billions of rubles.
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