RusEnergy

Oct. 06, 2008 - Kommerant - Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has been rated Russia’s biggest company in the Expert 400 rating this year. LUKOIL is in second place. The companies occupied the same places in last year’s rating. Gazprom’s volume of sales in 2007 was 2.39 trillion rubles, and LUKOIL’s was 1.71 trillion rubles. Russian Railways (total sales 975.59 billion rubles in 2007) moved up from fourth place last year to third. Rosneft (total sales 903.56 billion rubles) moved up to fourth place from sixth. RAO UES of Russia (total sales 821.69 billion rubles) was in fifth place, down from third place last year after its reorganization on July 1, 2008. TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz, Sberbank, Norilsk Nickel and Severstal rounded out the Russian top ten. At the other end of the rating were Arkada, Renaissance Insurance Group, Ashinsky Metals Plant and Russian Textiles (total sales 9.44 billion rubles). Gazprom also rated highest in the country for capitalization, with a market value of 5.4 trillion rubles. Rosneft (2.28 trillion rubles) ranks second on this list, with LUKOIL (1.58 trillion) coming in third. In 400th place was Sverdlovenergosbyt with capitalization of 523 billion rubles. Vedomosti newspaper observed that the growth rate of the receipts of the companies on the list were at a five-year low, with an average of 24.4 percent. Between 2003 and 21006, that average was 29 percent per annum. The reduction is due to world financial instability.