The world's largest gas firm Gazprom reported a 40 percent rise in nine-month profits whose impact was muted by a sharp drop in third quarter earnings that were attributed to higher costs. The Russian monopoly said in a statement that its net profits for the first nine months of 2010 had risen 39.5 percent to 668.75 billion rubles ($22.82 billion, 16.7 billion euros).
But profits attributed to the company's shareholders dropped to 159.0 billion rubles in the third quarter from 174.6 billion rubles in Q3 2009 - an 8.9 percent decline that sent the stock down one percent in early trading.