Gazprom, the Russian energy major, announced Monday that its second-quarter profits surged more than three-fold compared to the same period of last year, as natural gas prices went up, The Moscow Times reports.
In the second quarter, the state-owned enterprise recorded a net profit of 521.2 billion rubles ($7 billion), an increase that tripled year-on-year.
Its income increased twice to 2.07 trillion rubles between April and June, compared to last year, thanks to rising demand for natural gas as countries continue their post-pandemic recuperation.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 wreaked havoc on the global energy industry, with demand slashed as several nations shut down swaths of their industries in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Since the beginning of 2021, Gazprom’s shipments to Europe, which account for the majority of the company’s earnings, have increased by 23 percent compared to last year’s volumes.
However, due to a fire at a gas processing plant in western Siberia in August, Gazprom briefly curtailed its gas shipments to Europe.
The firm is embroiled in a debate over the nearly finished Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Europe, which would run beneath the Baltic Sea.
The $12 billion gas transit project is expected to increase Russian natural gas exports at least twice, to Germany, Europe’s largest economy. It bypasses Ukraine, denying Kiev vital gas transit revenues.
