Gazprom said its board had decided to increase its investment programme for 2017 by 217.3 billion roubles ($3.79 billion) to 1.13 trillion, citing the need to boost financing of big projects. The Russian gas company usually raises its investments programme during the course of the year and has been criticised by analysts for incurring increased costs.

Gazprom said the rise in investments is related to an increase in financing of strategic projects such as Power of Siberia gas pipeline to China, which is due to be commissioned in December 2019, as well as undersea project TurkStream. It said it had already constructed combined 373 kilometres (233 miles) of the two lines of TurkStream undersea pipeline to Turkey in its sea section.

The planned undersea route of the pipeline is over 900 kilometres. Gazprom also said that it has constructed more than a half of Power of Siberia with capacity of around 38 billion cubic metres of gas per year. It said capital expenditure for this year would rise to 738.5 billion roubles, or by 112.5 billion roubles compared to the initial programme approved at the end of 2016.