By John Bowker and Katya Golubkova

MOSCOW, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Gazprom, the world's biggest gas company, raised the spectre of a row with European customers not buying all the gas contracted for in 2009, while rising costs and debt took the shine off its quarterly profits.
Russia's monopoly gas exporter said costs rose 13.5 percent in the three months to end June, partly due to more expensive gas from central Asia, while debt soared 31 percent in the first half to 1.34 trillion roubles ($46 billion).

"We are disappointed by the company's inability to control opex (operating expenditure) in the current environment. We feel that rising competition from low-cost producers, both in Europe and Russia, will put further pressure on the company's profitability," said Citi analysts in a note.
Even so, the second-quarter net profit beat analysts' forecasts as demand for gas picked up from the trough of the global economic crisis.
Gazprom shares closed up 3.93 percent in Moscow, but the wider Moscow index was up 5.05 percent.
Gazprom said in a statement on Monday that second-quarter profit attributable to shareholders was 192.6 billion roubles ($6.6 billion), a big drop on the same period a year ago but up from the 110 billion roubles made in the three months to end-March.

Analysts polled by Reuters had on average forecast a profit of 188.15 billion roubles for the period.
They said after publication of the results that the year-on-year decline had been expected due to the economic downturn and that winter could be crucial for the company.
"Any recovery in demand for Russian gas domestically and in Europe is the key driver for Gazprom," Nomura analysts said.
"We think we have observed a trough in gas consumption declines in Russia," Bernstein Research analysts said in a note.
"With natural gas constituting around 70 percent of the fuel mix in Russian thermal power plants ... demand for Gazprom's gas should be returning."
Gazprom's executives told a conference call they expected gas demand to keep rebounding until the end of the year, with sales falling 7 percent year-on-year in Russia and by 22 percent in its key European markets to 142-143 bcm in 2009.
Fourth-quarter sales would hit a healthy 45 bcm, but the company will likely face tough penalty talks with European customers, who must pay fines if they buy less gas than stated in so-called "take-or-pay" contracts with Gazprom.
Sergei Chelpanov, deputy head of Gazprom's export division, said European customers would buy 8-9 bcm less gas than contracted for, laying themselves open to potential fines of $2.5 billion, according to Reuters calculations based on Gazprom's average price for exported gas of $280 per 1,000 cm.
"These are contractual obligations and they should be met. We are not talking about cancelling (sanctions for low purchases)," Chelpanov told a conference call.
Gazprom's second-quarter profit rose from the January to March period, when the company was hit hard by low demand in Europe and a three-week supply suspension that resulted from a pricing dispute with Ukraine.
Revenue in the second quarter was 708 billion roubles, down 16 percent on a year ago but higher than the average market forecast of 689 billion roubles.
The group warned that volatile financial markets made it hard to predict future cashflow.

(Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov, editing by Will Waterman)

($1 = 29.01 roubles) Keywords: GAZPROM/ (moscow.newsroom@reuters.com; +7 495 775 1242)

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