Russia's Rosneft posted a sharp year-on-year rise in net profit in the first quarter as revenues also increased appreciably.

The state-controlled oil giant posted net profit of 131 billion roubles ($2 billion) in the three months to the end of March, up more than 61% from the 81 billion roubles a year earlier.

Revenues shot up 20.6% to 2.08 trillion roubles from 1.72 trillion roubles a year earlier.

Rosneft had pulled in 109 billion roubles of net profit in the fourth quarter, when revenues were higher at 2.17 trillion roubles.

Meanwhile, Rosneft said that its efforts to reduce its long-term gross debt led to a 10% fall in debt to about 3.1 trillion roubles as of 31 March.

The company said that it also reduced its operating costs by 5% to 195 roubles per barrel of oil equivalent in the first quarter of this year against the fourth quarter of 2018. Capital investments also fell by 17% to 214 billion roubles.

These two developments, coupled with a foreign exchange gain, helped Rosneft to report an improvement in the bottom line despite the worsening price environment and slight declines in the production of oil, condensate and natural gas in the reporting period against the fourth quarter of the last year.

Output of oil and condensate fell by 3% to 57.6 million tonnes (4.67 million barrels per day) in the first quarter while gas production declined marginally to 17.1 billion cubic metres.

Rosneft has significantly upped its 3D seismic activities during the first quarter, with the amount of covered square kilometres more than doubling to over 4000, as the company is trying to identify new structures for development.

Meanwhile, development drilling activity fell by 10% during the first quarter, it said.

The company said that after commissioning four greenfields in West Siberia in 2018, it is planning to complete the commissioning of just one major greenfield later this year – the East Urengoy gas and condensate field in West Siberia that is operated by its subsidiary Rospan.

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Profit booms at Rosneft in Q1