Rosneft Doubles Q4 Profit After Settling Sistema Dispute

Russia’s oil giant Rosneft reported on Monday a fourth-quarter net profit, meeting analyst expectations and coming in at more than double the third quarter profit after it settled a legal dispute with holding conglomerate Sistema.

Rosneft’s net income in Q4 jumped to US$1.7 billion (100 billion rubles) from US$811.7 million (47 billion rubles) in Q3, after it had received the payment from Sistema as part of an out-of-court settlement in their dispute over oil producer Bashneft.

The Russian government seized Sistema’s controlling stake in Bashneft in 2014 and said that its privatization had been illegal. Later Rosneft bought a majority stake in Bashneft and sued Sistema, alleging that the conglomerate had removed assets from Bashneft.

In December 2017, Rosneft and Sistema agreed to an out-of-court settlement under which Sistema had to pay US$1.7 billion (100 billion rubles) to Rosneft by March 30, 2018.

In early March, Sistema said that it had made the final payment, thus fulfilling all its financial obligations under the settlement.  

Rosneft said today that its 4Q 2017 revenue rose by 14.2 percent on the quarter, driven mainly by higher crude oil prices and increased oil and gas and petroleum products sales. Full-year 2017 revenues rose by 20.6 percent compared to 2016.

Rosneft also lifted its oil and gas production last year, by 6.5 percent, and pointed to the deals it signed in October with Kurdistan as notable developments in its international operations.

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Last year, Rosneft transferred US$2.1 billion to the Kurdistan government in prepayments for future oil supplies, and US$1 billion to Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA as part of an oil supply deal, Reuters quoted the company as saying.

Rosneft, however, did not include net debt figures in its latest report, which Moscow-based brokerage Aton has valued at US$60.6 billion (3.509 trillion rubles)—a figure similar to that included in the previous report.

“Rosneft is still the most leveraged oil company in Russia, and its deleveraging is perhaps investors’ greatest hope with respect to its investment case,” Reuters quoted Aton as saying.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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