Gazprom Neft promises to adjust net profit to pay good dividends

MOSCOW, Feb 19 (PRIME) -- Russian oil company Gazprom Neft may adjust its net profit in order to pay good dividends, Deputy CEO for Economy and Finance Alexei Yankevich said late on Thursday in a news conference.

“We will definitely not adjust the net profit (for calculation of dividends for 2020) to reduce it. Most likely we will repeat the adjustments we did for the first nine months of the year to exclude one-time depreciations typical of the entire industry,” he said.

The company adjusted the net profit on non-cash articles like asset impairment then, which was connected to a temporary fall of oil prices.

“We want to be in a competitive zone, we want good dividends. Yes, there is a net profit indicator, but this is only the basis. We will make a final decision after that, and I can definitely say that this adjusted net profit will not be smaller, it will likely be bigger that what you see in the report,” he said.

CEO Alexander Dyukov said in an interview to Rossiya 24 television channel that the company will continue paying interim dividends after it paid interim dividends in 2020.

Yankevich said that the issue was only whether the company should pay dividends for six months or for nine months.

Gas giant Gazprom owns 95.68% in Gazprom Neft.

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