Russia’s Oil Producers Reaping Rewards of OPEC+ Production Cuts

Investors are taking a closer look at Russian oil producers, as an 18-month production curb brought by the OPEC+ deal to decrease production by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) is proving successful, Vedomosti reports.

Oil reserves over the past year and a half shrank to a five-year average and oil prices grew to almost $80 per barrel this May. Now Experts at Goldman Sachs have reviewed their forecast for the sector and jointly with the Bank of America and Russia’s BCS financial group, have predicted the growth of free cash flows of Lukoil, Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, Tatneft and other Russian oil companies.

Analysts forecast the surge in these producers’ dividend payouts and dividend yields.

The reason behind the rising dividend yield is the declining desire for acquisitions abroad and exhausting possibilities of purchases on the domestic market, the newspaper says, quoting sources in the industry.

At least until mid-2019 the interest in Russian oil companies’ securities will continue growing if the expectations on the rising dividends are met, analyst at Raiffeisen Bank Andrei Polischuk said.

Moody’s Russia Vice President Denis Perevezentsev believes that thanks to high ruble prices on oil and the revised OPEC plus deal Russian oil producers’ financial results in 2018 will be impressing. However, the growing investment attractiveness of Russian oil companies will be contained by uncertainty amid the possible increase in the US sanctions pressure, he warned.