Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

OAO Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural-gas producer, recommended keeping its 2014 dividend at the previous year’s level even after profit declined.

Gazprom’s management recommended a payout of 7.2 rubles per share, or 90 percent of its profit under Russian accounting standards, the Moscow-based company said in an e-mail on Thursday. That’s 44 percent higher than the Bloomberg Dividend Forecast of 5 rubles. The gas exporter’s board is set to decide on the recommendation in May.

The shares rose 0.7 percent at 2:53 p.m. in Moscow after earlier dropping as much as 2.4 percent.

The recommendation “is an unexpected and therefore good news for the market,” said Andrey Polischuk, an oil and gas analyst at Raiffeisenbank in Moscow. “The yield is relatively low -- about 5 percent -- but yet higher than Russian Finance Ministry predicted.”

Gazprom’s dollar revenue may sink to the lowest in a decade because of weaker prices, according to a February forecast by the government, the company’s controlling shareholder. Last year’s domestic profit, used to calculate the dividend, would have translated into a payout of about 2 rubles, while the state has projected 5.2 rubles. Gazprom can opt to exclude the non- cash foreign currency loss that weighed on earnings.