Official: Russia’s Gazprom expects 2015 EBITDA at $30 bln

MOSCOW, Dec 25 (PRIME) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom expects that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) will stand at U.S. $30 billion in 2015 and the EBITDA margin will exceed 30%, Deputy CEO Andrei Kruglov told the corporate newspaper in an interview published Friday.

“We expect that the EBITDA margin of the Gazprom group will exceed 30% in 2015, which is slightly less than in the same period in 2014, when it stood at 35%. The expected margin decrease was firstly caused by a worse the oil and gas market situation, a higher tax burden. The company is meanwhile making considerable efforts to cut the expenditures in the current conditions,” Kruglov said.

He also said that it is hard to forecast the net profit margin by now but the preliminary forecast stands at 10%.

Gazprom will maintain a sustainable economic performance even if oil prices continue to decline because of the predominance of foreign currencies in the revenue, a low prime cost and growth of gas demand, Kruglov said.

The company plans to include a condition to pay for gas in “various currencies, including the Russian ruble” in its new export contracts, he said.

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