Govt to make Gazprom pay 72 bln rbl in extra MET for low ‘17 divs

MOSCOW, Jun 20 (PRIME) -- The Russian government plans to raise the mineral extraction tax (MET) for Gazprom in 2018 to make it pay an additional 72 billion rubles to compensate for low dividends for 2017, according to a draft law seen by PRIME on Wednesday.

Deputy Finance Minister Ilya Trunin said, “We will compensate budget losses by putting an additional burden because dividends for 2017 were not fully paid in 2018. The amount stands at 72 billion rubles.”

The government raised the MET for Gazprom in October–December 2017 because of lower than planned dividends for 2016. Gazprom paid 30 billion rubles then.

In May, Gazprom’s board of directors offered to pay 8 rubles per share in dividends for 2017, which accounts for 26.6% of the company’s net profit under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

(64.0683 rubles – U.S. $1)

End