Serbia's NIS 9-mo cons net profit halves

The company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) amounted to 31.2 billion dinars, down from 42 billion dinars, while liabilities in terms of taxes and other public revenues fell to 136.6 billion dinars from 142.3 billion dinars, NIS said in a statement.

NIS invested 29 billion dinars in the first nine months of 2019, up from 27.3 billion dinars in January-September 2018, mainly in oil and gas exploration and production, bottom of the barrel projects and the key project of the second stage of the modernisation of the Pancevo oil refinery.

Oil and gas production amounted to 965,000 tonnes of oil equivalent, down from 999,000 tonnes in the first nine months of 2018, and 2.3 million tonnes of crude oil and semi-finished product were processed, NIS noted.

NIS' retail sales in Serbia increased by 5% on the year in the nine months through September 2019.

"In the year in which we mark the 10th anniversary of Gazprom Neft becoming the majority shareholder, we continue investing in capital projects that will provide for company’s secure future. NIS operates on a highly demanding and competitive regional market. Despite these circumstances and thanks to implementation of our development strategy, we have retained our position of a reliable partner both for our shareholders and for the entire community we operate in," the CEO of NIS, Kirill Tyurdenev, said in the statement.

NIS, 56.15%-owned by Russia's Gazprom, is one of the largest vertically integrated oil and gas companies in Southeast Europe. Its main activities include the exploration, production and processing of oil and gas, as well as the production and retail trade with a wide range of petroleum products. Serbia's government owns a 29.87% stake in NIS.

(1 euro = 117.399 dinars)