Russian independent oil producer Lukoil has posted a net profit of 159 billion roubles ($2.42 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2018, up from 120.5 billion ($1.83 billion), the company said on Monday, according to RBC.
Russia’s No.2 oil producer reported a Q4 revenue of 2 trillion roubles ($30.4 billion), while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose to 278.3 billion roubles, up from 223.7 billion in the same period in 2017, Lukoil said.
The company also said its gas production in 2018 amounted to 33.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) which is 16.2% more compared to 2017. In the fourth quarter of 2018, gas production amounted to 8.9 bcm, which is 4.6% higher than in the third quarter of 2018.
The main factor in the growth of gas production was the development of projects in Uzbekistan. Thanks to the launch of new gas treatment facilities, the production of Kandym and Gissar projects in 2018 increased to 13.4 bcm (in the share of the Lukoil Group), which is 66.7% more than in 2017, the company said.
In 2018, the production of petroleum products at the company’s own refineries increased by 0.4% compared with 2017, to 63.8 million tons, which is due to an increase in utilization in refineries in Perm, Volgograd, Italy and Romania.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, 16.3 million tons of petroleum products were produced, which is 1.8% less than in the third quarter of 2018. The decrease is due to scheduled repairs at refineries in Nizhny Novgorod and Italy, Lukoil said.
Lukoil is the second largest company in Russia after Gazprom, and the largest non-state enterprise in the country in terms of revenue. Internationally, it is one of the largest global producers of crude oil. The company has operations and subsidiaries in more than 40 countries around the world, and employs more than 110,000 people.
