Rosneft's quarterly net profit hit by weak oil prices

By Olesya Astakhova and Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian oil producer Rosneft said on Tuesday its net profit fell by almost a quarter to 109 billion roubles ($1.66 billion) in the fourth quarter, hit by weak oil prices.

Rosneft is the first Russian oil and gas producer to report results for 2018, the first year of annual losses for oil prices since 2015.

Rosneft said on Tuesday that the production of liquid hydrocarbons in the fourth quarter stood at 4.79 million barrels per day, up 1.4 percent from the third quarter.

Fourth-quarter total hydrocarbon production, which includes gas, stood at 5.94 million bpd, up 1.9 percent from the third quarter, it said.

Rosneft also said that its fourth-quarter revenue fell 5.3 percent quarter on quarter to 2.2 trillion roubles, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 24.1 percent to 488 billion roubles, hit by increased spending by the end of the year along with higher export taxes and lower oil prices.

Rosneft did not mention the recent political crisis in Venezuela where it runs a number of oil projects and where the state oil company PDVSA owes Rosneft $3.1 billion as of end-September.

PDVSA is paying the debt back to Rosneft by oil supplies. Rosneft's operations in Venezuela have become the focus of public attention amid a power struggle between the National Assembly and pro-Moscow President Nicolas Maduro.

Rosneft said in its full-year report that it was monitoring its commercial projects in Venezuela.

($1 = 65.5691 roubles)

(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova and Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jason Neely and Louise Heavens)