Gazprom's oil arm posts half-yearly 2.2% increase in oil exports

MOSCOW, August 7 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom, reported on Thursday a 2.2% year-on-year increase in crude oil exports in January-June to 7.62 million metric tons (55.9 mln bbls).

Gazprom Neft said the figures referred to exports to countries outside the Commonwealth of Independent States - a loose association of former Soviet republics that does not include the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

At the same time, exports of petroleum products in the reporting period declined 17.4% to 4.44 million metric tons, Gazprom Neft said.

Gazprom Neft earlier reported a 73.8% increase in its net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards year-on-year in the first half of 2008.

The company's net profit totaled 61.9 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) in January-June 2008, up from 35.6 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) in the same period last year.

Gazprom Neft, known as Sibneft before it was taken over by Gazprom in September 2005, stabilized crude output at 32.7 million metric tons (240 million barrels) in 2007 - the same production level as in 2006. The company plans to boost annual crude output to 90-100 million tons (660-730 million barrels) by 2020.

Gazprom owns a 75% stake in the company, and another 20% belongs to a consortium made up of Italy's ENI and Enel.