Devaluation of ruble leads to decline in Gazprom’s profit

The devaluation of the ruble, which should play into exporters’ hands, has played nasty trick on Gazprom. On the results of the first quarter of 2014, due to the weakening of the Russian currency, the company managed to increase the revenues from the gas exports by 13%, or 56 billion rubles, whereas the losses from the devaluation of the ruble made up 172 billion rubles. As a result, having the total revenue growth in the amount of 7% to 1.56 trillion rubles, the gas monopoly decreased its net profit by 41% to 231.66 billion rubles, the RBC daily reports.

The main reasons for such sharp decline in profits were called the fall of the ruble against the dollar and the increase in operating costs, connected with the need to increase reserves for the "doubtful trade receivables" of Naftogaz Ukrainy. Thus, the reserve for accounts receivable because of the Ukraine increased five times - from 13.15 billion to 72.3 billion rubles.