Gazprom increases investment plan by $3.7 bln to finance key projects, including TurkStream

MOSCOW - Reuters

Gazprom said on on Oct. 18 its board had decided to increase its investment program for 2017 by 217.3 billion rubles ($3.79 billion) to 1.13 trillion, citing the need to boost financing of big projects.

The Russian gas company usually raises its investments program during the course of the year and has been criticized by analysts for incurring increased costs.

Gazprom said the rise in investments is related to an increase in financing of strategic projects such as Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China, which is due to be commissioned in December 2019, as well as undersea project TurkStream.

It said it had already constructed combined 373 kilometers (233 miles) of the two lines of TurkStream undersea pipeline to Turkey in its sea section. The planned undersea route of the pipeline is over 900 kilometers.

Gazprom also said that it has constructed more than a half of Power of Siberia with capacity of around 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

It said capital expenditure for this year would rise to 738.5 billion rubles, or by 112.5 billion rubles compared to the initial program approved at the end of 2016.