Gazprom reports 24pc rise in profit

MOSCOW, April 28 (AFP): Gazprom, the world's biggest gas firm, reported a 24.0-per cent net profit leap for 2010 Thursday to 968.6 billion rubles (35.2 billion dollars). It said that the increase from the 2009 figure came on a rise of 20 per cent in total sales to 3.597 trillion rubles (130.7 billion dollars), which included a 14-per cent increase in net sales of gas in the period to 2.186 trillion rubles (79.4 billion dollars). "This increase was due to the growth of volumes of gas sold to former Soviet Union countries," it said. Gazprom said it was helped in Russia by an increase in the average domestic price for gas set by the Federal Tariffs Service and in other former Soviet countries by an increase of average realised prices in Russian ruble terms. Gazprom, founded in 1989, grew out of the USSR's gas industry ministry and was part-privatised from 1993 in the much-criticised sale of state assets in post-Soviet Russia.