February 21 (SeeNews) - Serbian oil and gas group NIS [BEL:NIIS] turned to a consolidated net profit of 21 billion dinars ($203 million/178.6 million euro) in 2021 from a 7.6 billion dinars net loss recorded in 2020, it said on Monday.
The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) jumped to 53.2 billion dinars from 15.8 billion dinars, NIS said in a statement.
In 2021, NIS produced 1.194 million tonnes of oil equivalent and put in operation over 40 new exploration and production wells in Serbia and Romania, the company noted.
The Pancevo Refinery increased its processing volume by 9% to 3.945 million tonnes of oil, the highest level since 2009, while sales of petroleum products soared to 4.031 million tonnes, up 14% on an annual basis, NIS said.
At the end of 2021, NIS signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Serbian government to increase its stake in petrochemicals producer HIP Petrohemija to 90%, contribute 150 million euro to Petrohemija's capital, and construct a new 140,000 tonne-polypropylene plant within the next six years.
"It has been a challenging year, but we managed to keep NIS stable and diversify our portfolio by venturing into petrochemistry. The fulfillment of the strategic partnership agreement with HIP Petrohemija and the Serbian Government will remain our top priority for the next several years. We also plan to keep modernising all areas of our business and will invest about 25 billion dinars in development projects this year," CEO Kirill Tyurdenev noted.
NIS, 56.15%-owned by 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.
The company's shares closed up 0.16% at 629 dinars on the Belgrade bourse on Monday.
(1 euro = 117.556 dinars)
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