MOSCOW, January 31 (RIA Novosti) - Novatek [RTS: NVTK] said Wednesday its estimated natural gas production grew 13.9% in 2006 year-on-year to 28.7 billion cubic meters.

The independent Russian gas producer said its gas condensate and oil output slipped 3.5% to 2.5 million metric tons in 2006.

In 2005, Novatek produced some 25.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 2.59 million metric tons of gas condensate and oil.

Russia's second largest gas producer said it refined 2.06 million tons of unstable gas condensate at its gas processing plant in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area in the northeast Urals.

The company's charter capital, which stands at 303.63 billion rubles ($10.99 billion), is divided into 3,036,306 shares with par value of 100 rubles ($3.62) each. Its shares are traded on the RTS, LSE, and NASDAQ PORTAL.

Novatek said in November last year its IFRS net profit grew 4.3% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2006, to 11.23 billion rubles (about $420.6 million).