Ksenia Galouchko, Anna Shiryaevskaya

OAO Gazprom, Russia’s natural-gas export monopoly, headed for a one-month high as its board approved a smaller investment program for 2013 than this year.

Gazprom rose as much as 1.8 percent before trading up 1.2 percent at 141.90 rubles by 4:51 p.m. in Moscow, poised for the highest level since Nov. 22. The amount of shares traded was 39 million, equivalent to 1.2 times the three-month average.

The board approved next year’s investments at 705.4 billion rubles ($22.9 billion), Gazprom said in an e-mailed statement. That compares with 975 billion rubles for 2012. The board set capital expenditure at 658 billion rubles.

“It is positive news because the main thing investors criticized Gazprom for was high spending,” Sergey Vakhrameev, an analyst at IFC Metropol in Moscow, said by phone today. “Gazprom now met investors halfway and cut investments.”

Investors would like to see Gazprom increasing its free cash flow, Alexei Kokin, an analyst at UralSib Capital, said by phone.

Gazprom’s board passed a 25 percent increase in the 2012 investment program in October.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-20/gazprom-heads-for-1-month-high-on-2013-investments-moscow-mover.html