Gazprom lowers export price to $372/1,000 m3 in 2014 budget
MOSCOW. Jan 9 (Interfax) - OJSC Gazprom has built into the first version of its budget for this year an average price for gas delivery to countries outside the Commonwealth of Independent States of $372 per thousand cubic meters, down from $387 in 2013, the company's deputy chief and head of its financial and economics department, Andrei Kruglov, said in an interview given to the Gazprom journal.
The draft 2014 budget is formulated on the assumptions that the price for Urals brand oil will drop $4 to $101 per barrel, that the U.S. dollar exchange rate will reach 33.4 rubles, and that the average price for gas sales to Russian consumers will increase to 273 rubles per thousand cubic meters throughout this year with regulated prices being indexed 15% as of July 1, 2013.
Kruglov confirmed the EBITDA forecast of $55 billion for 2013 that was announced two months ago. This figure is in line with market expectations of $56.1 billion, according to EFIR-Interfax.
"I expect that for this year Gazprom will again turn out to be among the world leaders by EBITDA and net profit," Kruglov said.
Gazprom paid 1.9 trillion rubles in taxes in 2013, including 1.2 trillion rubles from its gas business.
In 2014, taxes generated from the gas business could reach 1.3 trillion rubles. "The main factors in the growth of taxes include an increase in tax on profit, growth of average annual natural resource extraction tax (NRET) rates on natural gas from 602 rubles to almost 700 rubles per 1,000 cubic meters in 2014, as well as the growth of tax on property in terms of trunk gas pipelines [and] power lines and installations that are an integral part of these facilities from 0.4% to 0.7% in 2014," Kruglov said.
He confirmed that the company only plans to switch to calculating dividends based on net profit to International Financial Reporting Standards based on 2014 results.
Kruglov also said that "given the banking crisis in the eurozone and the introduction of tough requirements for bank capital - Basel III - Gazprom is working on opening a new source of project financing for itself - the project bonds market."
"The project bonds market is aimed at the non-bank circle of investors, particularly insurance companies and pension funds. Investors in bonds are traditionally not prepared to assume the risks of a project at the construction stage. However, after a project reaches the stage of full-scale operations, investors can offer more optimal conditions by duration and cost of debt financing. Using project bonds to partially refinance the bank debt of project companies will enable us to free up bank limits for new projects. The project bonds market is actively used to finance major high-quality energy projects around the world, and access to it will significantly increase Gazprom's competitiveness," Kruglov said.