Romania’s Transgaz Cuts '08 Net Profit Fcast by 3.8% to 259.05 Mln Lei (66 Mln Euro)

Transgaz net profit fell 5.85% to 224 million lei last year.

Transgaz expects total revenue to reach 1.2 billion lei this year, down by 4.1% from the earlier forecast, but 15% higher than in 2007, it said in a statement.

Company officials were not immediately available to comment on the revised figures.

Transgaz (www.transgaz.ro) is a component of the blue-chip index of the Bucharest bourse. Its shares have been suspended from trading since Tuesday when the company held a general shareholders meeting. They last traded 5.71% down at 157.0 lei on Monday and will resume trading on Thursday.

The Romanian company, together with Austria's OMV, Hungary's MOL, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz and Turkey's Botas, is a shareholder in the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International project. German power giant RWE will also join the project designed to reduce the EU's reliance on Russian gas supplies.

(1 euro = 3.9301 Romanian lei)