KazMunayGas sees uptick in H1 profit

KazMunayGas (KMG) increased its net profit by an annual 5% in the first half of 2022 to 677bn tenge ($1.5bn), the state-owned company said in its six-month update August 24.

A 66.1% annual increase in Brent averages helped push revenues for the half to 4.2bn tenge ($9.3bn), which is 57.3% higher than in January to June last year.

However the cost of purchasing gas for its downstream assets, along with raw crude and oil products, has sharply risen, climbing by 73.8% in the reporting period yr/r, with expenditures rising to 2.8bn tenge ($6.3bn).

"The increase in production costs was largely due to the increase in the average oil price and the weakening of the average exchange rate of tenge against the US dollar."

Adjusted EBITDA for January to June amounted to 598bn tenge, an increase of 22.4% yr/yr.  KMG also managed to scale back capex in accrual terms, by around 1.7% on the year ago period, but this was more than offset by rising interest on loans and the tenge weakening against the dollar, which led to finance costs reaching 153bn tenge ($329.7mn), up 32.4% yr/yr.