MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian oil giant Rosneft <ROSN.MM> said on Wednesday it had continued to receive claims from customers through the third quarter over a major contamination of oil via the Druzhba pipeline earlier this year.
Customers complained about repeated cases of increased organic chloride levels in oil, although the oil delivered by Rosneft to the Transneft pipeline monopoly <TRNF_p.MM> was in line with regulations, Rosneft said in its quarterly report.
Rosneft said it had also received claims from customers who had not received oil as contracted because of the pipeline contamination.
Last month, Russia and Hungary signed a first settlement over compensation for tainted oil shipped to Europe via a major oil pipeline earlier this year, with oil pipeline monopoly Transneft promising to clinch deals with other countries soon.
Talks with Rosneft, Russia's top oil producer that also has refineries in Germany, were the most difficult. Rosneft and Transneft <TRNF_p.MM> have publicly attacked each other since the tainted oil crisis.
Rosneft also said on Wednesday that its third quarter net profit was 225 billion roubles ($3.54 billion), up from 142 billion roubles for the same period a year ago.
Revenues for the period were 2.24 trillion roubles, slightly down from 2.29 trillion roubles in the third quarter last year, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) stood at 554 billion roubles, down 14% from the same period a year ago.
($1 = 63.6390 roubles)
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova and Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Louise Heavens and Alex Richardson)
