Gazprom Gazenergoset to boost investment 23% to 2.7 bln rubles in 2017
MOSCOW. June 26 (Interfax) - Gazprom Gazenergoset, a division of Russian gas giant Gazprom that sells oil products, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and helium, will increase its investment program by almost 23% to 2.7 billion rubles in 2017, the company's CEO, Dmitry Mironov said in an interview with Interfax.
"The main aims of the investment program are quality development of assets and ensuring safe operation of hazardous production facilities, including in new regions of operations. We don't have that many big projects for now. At present, there is the project carried over from 2016 to build compressed gas filling stations for automobiles," Mironov said.
"The company's biggest project is the construction of helium logistics center in the Far East, but the main expenditures on it will be in the future; peak investments will fall on 2019-2022. Overall investment in the project will amount to about 5.6 billion rubles," Mironov said.
He said the company's revenue grew by 2.3% to a new record of 263 billion rubles in 2016, and gross profit rose by 14% to 25.2 billion rubles.
Sales of LPG and helium grew by 1.6% to 2.5 million tonnes and almost 1% to about 5 million cubic meters, respectively, while sales of oil products fell by 4.4% to 7.3 million tonnes.
"The difficulty of Gazprom Gazenergoset's position is that on one hand we are under pressure from deteriorating market factors and on the other internal challenges are being complicated on the part of the main shareholder. Within the Gazprom group there are increasingly tough conditions for pricing, for efficiency of deliveries," Mironov said.
"In such a situation, in order to develop, one can't just resell a good, so we are constantly looking for new opportunities, developing new market instruments. For example, we've begun to actively develop small-scale wholesale sales through e-commerce, handing this role over to our subsidiary LLC Gazenergoset St. Petersburg," Mironov said.