Russia sees Gazprom 2016 dividend payout ratio up to 50 percent

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia expects natural gas producer Gazprom (GAZP.MM) to pay 50 percent of its earnings in 2016 dividends, more than doubling the payout from the previous year, according to the draft federal budget.

The government earlier ordered a 50-percent threshold for state companies but Gazprom gained a waiver from the rule and set 2015 dividends at around 23.5 percent of net profit under International Financial Reporting Standards.

Gazprom is expected to make a 893 billion rouble (11.65 billion pounds) net profit in 2016 and return half of it to shareholders, of which around 171 billion roubles should go to the state budget in 2017, the document showed.

That means a dividend of around 18.8 roubles per share, according to Reuters calculations, up from 7.89 roubles per share paid on 2015 results.

Gazprom's net profit is seen falling 7 percent to 828 billion roubles in 2017, from which the budget should receive up to 159 billion roubles in the form of dividends in 2018.

In 2018, the firm's earnings are seen at 837 billion roubles, implying 2019 budget revenues from its dividends of around 161 billion roubles.

(Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva and Darya Korsunskaya; writing by Maria Kiselyova; editing by Jason Neely)