Oil price slide hits Russia's Lukoil

Russia's largest private oil firm Lukoil said Tuesday the slide in oil prices had caused its profits to dip more than expected in the third quarter.

The company said its net profit between July and September was 54.8 billion rubles ($840 million), a figure that represents a 70-percent fall year-on-year and is lower than predicted by analysts.

Lukoil's revenues fell 10 percent to 1.309 trillion rubles in comparison to last year.

Lukoil said its results this year had been affected by "lower than average hydrocarbon prices" among many factors, including an increase in taxes for crude oil extraction and transportation tariffs.

Lukoil said EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation), a measure of underlying profitability, also fell by 22 percent in the third quarter to 166 billion rubles.

The slide in oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis have pummelled the Russian economy.

Lukoil said its oil production since the beginning of the year had decreased by 6.4 percent to an average of 2.2 million barrels of oil per day equivalent.