Russian Gazprom decides not to pay dividend payouts for 2022

The board of directors of the Russian gas giant Gazprom has recommended the shareholders’ general meeting to refrain from making dividend payouts for the second half of 2022.

«The board of directors has recommended the general meeting of shareholders to not announce and distribute dividends for 2022 as the company spent about $14.9 billion for dividend payouts in the first half of last year (the record high amount of dividends for both Gazprom and the Russian stock market),» Gazprom said in a statement.

The general meeting of shareholders is going to be held remotely when shareholders can vote by ballots and messages. The company is going to stop voting at 6 p.m. on June 29.

According to Gazprom’s consolidated financial report for 2022, published in accordance with international standards, the net profit of the company dropped by 41% from $26 billion in 2021 to $15.2 billion in 2022.

«In 2022, we obtained a net profit of $14.9 billion. This is one of the best results in the company’s history. At the same time, we dealt with higher tax payments which we paid in the first half of the reported year,» Famil Sadygov, deputy head of Gazprom, said.

According to the executive, the amount of the company’s dividend base adjusted for non-cash items reached $27.3 billion in the first half of 2022, which is 78% bigger than the company’s net profit. As a result, the company allocated about $14.9 billion for interim dividends, or 55% of the adjusted net profit of the Gazprom Group in 2022, according to the financial report prepared under international standards. In other words, Gazprom had allocated $1.4 billion more for dividend payouts than was projected by the company’s dividend policy.

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 became a huge problem for Gazprom. The company reported a sharp decline in its exports of gas to Europe, a region that used to be a primary market for the Russian gas company. In turn, Gazprom has tried to expand its exports to alternative markets, including China. Moreover, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have announced their intentions to create a so-called gas alliance, where Russia is the exporter while the two others are importers of gas.