Midsized oil company Bashneft said its net profit more than doubled in the fourth quarter, year on year, to $570 million, as oil prices rose.
Bashneft, owned by AFK Sistema, also said full-year 2010 net profit rose to $1.43 billion from $420 million in 2009.
After Sistema acquired Bashneft from the regional authorities in 2009 for about $2.5 billion, the company achieved the highest production growth level among its Russian peers. In 2010, its daily crude production jumped 15.6 percent to 276,000 barrels, while refining volumes last year rose 2 percent to 21.19 million tons. The full-year refining output was offset by maintenance work in the last quarter, when Bashneft's refining volume fell 5.5 percent compared with the previous three months.
(Reuters)