Novatek reports profit of about $5.1 billion in 2023

Novatek

Russian LNG producer Novatek reported a net profit of about 463 billion rubles ($5.09 billion) in 2023. The company did not publish its financial results in 2022.

In 2023, Novatek’s total revenues and normalized Ebitda, including the company’s share in the Ebitda of joint ventures, amounted to 1.37 trillion rubles ($15.05 billion) and 889.8 billion rubles ($9.78 billion), respectively, the firm said in a statement.

“Net cash provided by operating activities of the group amounted to 433.3 billion rubles in 2023 and our cash used for capital expenditures amounted to 223.8 billion rubles,” Novatek said.

In the first half of 2023, Novatek reported a net profit of 155.6 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) and this was the first time since 2021 that the company has published its financial results.

This means that the firm earned about $3.4 billion in the second half of 2023.

Novatek said in April 2022 that it will not release its financial results for the first quarter of 2022.

This announcement was made after the Russia-Ukraine war started in February 2022. Following EU and US sanctions on Russia and Russian companies, Novatek also delisted from the London Stock Exchange in February last year.

Last month, Novatek reported a 2.7 percent rise in its natural gas sales, including LNG, in 2023.

The company’s natural gas sales reached 78.63 bcm last year.

Novatek currently exports LNG via its 17.4 mtpa Yamal LNG plant and the mid-scale facility in Vysotsk with a nameplate capacity of 660,000 tons

The firm is also building the 19.8 mtpa Arctic LNG 2 plant and in August completed the installation of the first of three trains which will serve the project.

According to reports in Russia, Novatek started production of LNG from this unit in December and expects to ship first cargoes in March.

However, the firm also issued force majeure on Arctic 2 LNG supplies to its customers due to US sanctions imposed on the project in November last year, the reports said.

France’s TotalEnergies recently said it had initiated a force majeure process on the Novatek-operated Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia due to sanctions.

Novatek is the LNG project’s operator with a 60 percent stake, TotalEnergies owns 10 percent, while CNPC and CNOOC of China have 10 percent, each.

Japan Arctic LNG, a consortium of Mitsui & Co and Jogmec, owns a 10 percent stake in the project as well.