MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rosneft doubled its fourth-quarter net income to 100 billion roubles (USD1.74 billion) after it resolved a row with Sistema, the Russian energy company said on Monday. The net income met analysts' forecasts, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Sistema agreed to pay 100 billion roubles to Rosneft as part of an out-of-court settlement over oil producer Bashneft.
Rosneft said the deal added 48 billion roubles to its 2017 net income. Sistema said this month that it had completed all payments to Rosneft. Rosneft's shares were up by 0.7 percent as of 0906 GMT versus Moscow's stock market which was down 0.4 percent.
Rosneft, headed by Igor Sechin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has been expanding aggressively, investing billions of dollars in foreign assets.
It said on Monday in 2017 it had transferred USD2.1 billion to the Iraqi Kurdistan government as prepayments for future oil supplies, and USD1 billion to Venezuela's PDVSA last April as part of an oil supply deal.
Moscow-based brokerage Aton said in a note that net debt has not materially changed since the previous financial report, valuing it at 3.509 trillion roubles (USD61 billion).
"Rosneft is still the most leveraged oil company in Russia, and its deleveraging is perhaps investors' greatest hope with respect to its investment case," it said.
The company did not report its net debt in the latest report. The most recent estimate published by Rosneft was 2.216 trillion roubles (USD38 billion) excluding prepayments to foreign firms as of June 30, 2017.
Rosneft has prepayment and long-term supply deals with Vitol , Glencore, Shell, Total, Eni, BP and Trafigura. It also has similar deals with China.
As MRC wrote previously, in November 2017, Rosneft signed a deal with CEFC China Energy Company Ltd on oil supplies, further strengthening its foothold in the world’s largest energy consumer.
On Monday, Rosneft said its fourth-quarter liquid hydrocarbon production - largest among listed global oil producers - reached 56.51 million tonnes, raising its full-year output by 7.3 percent to 225.5 million tonnes, or 4.53 million barrels per day.
BP, which owns a 19.75 percent stake in Rosneft, sources a third of its oil in Russia.
Rosneft's fourth-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose almost 8 percent to 393 billion roubles on revenue of 1.7 trillion roubles, up more than 14 percent.
Rosneft became Russia's largest publicly traded oil company in March 2013 after the USD55 billion takeover of TNK-BP, which was Russia’s third-largest oil producer at the time.
MRC