Novatek’s profit doubles in 2015

Russia’s Novatek, the operator of the giant Yamal LNG project, said its profit doubled to 74.4 billion roubles ($992 million) in 2015.

The company’s profit rose mainly due to increase in liquids sales and a rise in rouble gas prices, Novatek said in a statement on Friday. Revenues for the year of 2015 increased by 32.9 percent to 475.3 billion roubles.

Novatek’s natural gas sales volumes totaled 62.5 bcm as compared to 67.2 bcm in 2014.

Lower natural gas sales volumes were mainly a result of warmer weather conditions in 2015 compared to 2014, as well as one of the company’s “major customers not taking temporarily its full contracted volumes due to technical reasons,” Novatek said.

1 Russian ruble = 0.013351 U.S. dollars