Naftna Industrija Srbije AD, Serbia’s top oil company controlled by OAO Gazprom Neft, said rising profit this year will support its regional expansion in 2012.
The company, also known as NIS, expects its full year net income will reach almost 37 billion dinars ($498 million), after earning 27.1 billion dinars in the first nine months on rising output and a strong currency. That is more than double last year’s result, according to NIS’s filing to the Belgrade Stock Exchange earlier this week.
This year is a “period of creating a stable platform for development” and “intensive regional expansion,” Vadim Yakovlev, chairman of the managing board, said in an e-mailed statement today. The company’s 2012 business plan includes “an essential increase in investment program,” he said.
The regional expansion includes oil and gas exploration in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Romania, along with investments in retail gas stations, Nikolas Petri, NIS’s chief of strategic planning, said in an Oct. 27 interview.
NIS will explore four oil and gas blocks in Romania with Canada’s East West Petroleum Corp. and begin investing in a retail network there. The company is financing the exploration work and will have rights to 85 percent of any commercial finds, while East West Petroleum will get 15 percent.
