Rosneft, Russia’s No. 1 oil producer, said on Friday its 2011 net income rose 19.7 percent year-on-year to $12.452 billion, fuelled by record-high oil prices and output.
Quarterly net income of $2.992 billion was up 7.7% on the third quarter despite a 2.7% drop in revenues to $23.951 billion. For the whole year, revenues increased 46% to $91.98 billion.
Production ended the year up 2.6% with an average of 2.586 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, most of which was oil.
Rosneft president Eduard Khudainatov said the company had enjoyed both record production volumes and “an absolute historical high” in profits during 2011.
He added the results supported the producer’s strategy of focusing on new production regions like the Russian Artic and the Black Sea shelves.
Crude production averaged 2.38 million barrels per day during 2011, a 2.5% rise which the company attributed to higher production at the Vankor and Verkhnechonsk fields in East Siberia as well as the Sakhalin-1 project.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected slightly lower results, predicting net income of $12.18 billion on $91.84 billion sales.
Rosneft’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation grew 15%, reaching an all-time high of $22.022 billion but coming in just short of a $22.144 billion forecast by analysts.
According to Reuters calculations, the average price for Russia’s benchmark Urals crude blend export increased to a historic high of $110 per barrel in 2011 from $78 per barrel in 2010.
The company also said it plans to invest $4.5 billion on refinery upgrades this year after spending $3.1 billion in 2011.
