Gazprom says 2010 profits rise 24% to over 35 bln dlrs

Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas firm, said on Thursday its net profits for 2010 rose 24 percent from the year earlier to 968.6 billion rubles (35.2 billion dollars).

It said that the increased profits came on a rise of 20 percent in total sales to 3.597 trillion rubles (130.7 billion dollars), which included a 14 percent increase in net sales of gas in the period to 2.186 trillion rubles (79.4 billion dollars).

“This increase was due to the growth of volumes of gas sold to Former Soviet Union countries,” it said.