Gas Industry Financial Efficiency: the Impact of Pricing
The article describes pricing mechanisms for natural gas exported from Russia and domestically consumed. The impact of pricing on gas companies’ financial efficiency is analyzed. A factor model of gas sales financial efficiency is proposed. The result indicator is return on sales; the factors are unit costs, price level, and exchange rate. It is concluded that pricing policy autonomy and the opportunities to manage gas sales financial efficiency are limited by regulated prices on the domestic market and by world energy prices on the external markets. The development of gas exchanges in Japan and China leads to the enhancement of the role of exchange prices, formed during the trading process in Japan and China, as benchmarks in the Northeast Asia region. In order to avoid one-sided dependence of Russian gas export financial efficiency on the gas prices formed on Asian exchanges, taking into account the prospects of expanding pipeline gas exports to China and Mongolia from the Eastern regions of Russia a similar benchmark should be created in the East of Russia through the development of exchange trading. The creation of developed pipeline infrastructure in Eastern Siberia and its connection with the already formed gas infrastructure in the European part of Russia is a key condition for the formation of a gas trading center in Eastern Siberia.