The net profit of Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft was 170 billion roubles ($2.19 billion), the company said on Friday, less than half its level a year earlier due to high interest rates, sanctions and a stronger rouble.

Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s chief executive officer and a long-standing ally of President Vladimir Putin, has frequently criticised Russia’s central bank for tight monetary policy.

The central bank’s key rate has stood at 21% since October, as the regulator has tackled persistently high inflation.

The rate is the highest since the early years of Putin’s rule in the 2000s, when Russia was still recovering from the chaos that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse.

“During the reporting period, the company operated in conditions of further deterioration of the macroeconomic environment, including a decrease in the price of Russian Urals oil and an expansion of discounts (to global oil benchmarks), new sanctions, as well as strengthening of the rouble,” Sechin said in a statement.

Rosneft said interest expenses jumped by 1.8 times year on year in the first quarter.

Rosneft did not provide a comparison with the year-earlier net income, but last year it reported that first-quarter 2024 net income reached 399 billion roubles.

The company said net income grew from 158 billion roubles in the previous three months.

It also said the January – March revenue decreased by 8.5% from the previous quarter to 2.3 trillion roubles due to lower oil prices denominated in roubles.

Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) declined by 15.5% from the previous quarter to 598 billion roubles, Rosneft said.
Source: Reuters