Gazprom pushes stocks higher as Denmark allows NStream-2 building

MOSCOW, Oct 30 (PRIME) – The Russian stocks rose on Wednesday as gas giant Gazprom propelled the market higher following Denmark’s permit for construction of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline in its waters, analysts said.

The MOEX Russia Index rose 0.85% to 2,911.15 and the RTS increased 0.55% to 1,431.90.

“Gazprom became the major driver for the market,” Bogdan Zvarich, senior analyst at Promsvyazbank, said

Denmark granted a permit for construction of Gazprom’s pipeline Nord Stream-2 in its waters, lifting the only remaining obstacle. Gazprom rose 3.36% to 261.60 rubles.

“The Russian market shows miraculous equilibristic, and the shares of Gazprom took the garland of victory from Surgutneftegas and dragged the indices to their new records,” Yaroslav Kabakov, director for strategies at investment company Finam, said.

Yelena Kozhukhova, analyst at Veles Capital, said that Gazprom was also supported by Tuesday’s news that the company had finished filling the Sila Sibiri pipeline with gas, an achievement in the gas exports to China.

Zvarich said that the background for the Russian market was negative during the day as the European floors were mixed, while the U.S. indices were in the red after the first couple of hours of trading. The Brent oil price also provided no support to the market as it contracted by more than 0.5% as statistics of the U.S. Department of Energy showed an increase in commercial reserves of oil in the country over the past week.

Dmitry Bedenkov, head of the research department at investment company Russ-Invest, said that shares of diamond giant ALROSA were also among the gain leaders, rising 4.14% to 74.64 rubles after J.P. Morgan upgraded its recommendation to Overweight from Neutral and raised the target price to 81 rubles per share.

Shares of aluminum giant UC RUSAL gained 1.94% to 28.95 rubles after the company raised a U.S. $1 billion syndicated loan from a pool of international banks that it plans to spend on refinancing on debt among other goals, Bedenkov said.

Below are the MOEX Russia Index’ five most active stocks on Wednesday:

Company	Change, %	Last price, rbl	Trading volume, bln rbl
Gazprom	+3.36	261.60	25.402
Sberbank	-0.25	239.51	10.475
Lukoil	+0.52	5850.00	7.434
Surgutneftegas	-2.58	43.40	4.519
Norilsk Nickel	+1.36	18192.00	3.482

(63.8320 rubles – U.S. $1)

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