Moscow’s decision to defy a second wave of the coronavirus and keep its economy firing helped the country’s largest companies book a strong end to the year and recover from the early blows of the coronavirus pandemic.
The profit fell by more than 50 percent last spring, but almost half of Russia’s entire corporate profit was chalked up in the fourth quarter, as the country removed the strictest coronavirus restrictions and global optimism over vaccines helped push worldwide energy prices back above their pre-coronavirus levels.
“In contrast to a number of the other major international oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Total which ended the year with losses, we were the only global company that was profitable,” Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said in a boast to President Vladimir Putin about his company’s performance. The company out the year with a USD 2 billion annual profit, 80 percent down compared to 2019.
Sberbank also experienced the turnaround in the second half of 2020. After earnings crashed during the country’s national lockdown last spring and monthly profits approached zero, the bank bounced back strongly, recording a USD 10 billion windfall for the full year.
