Russian gas giant Gazprom sold almost half of its $1.25 billion Eurobond issue to U.S. investors, Yan Tavrovsky, head of JP Morgan in Russia and CIS, told Reuters on Monday. JP Morgan was one of the organizers of the deal.

Last week, Gazprom placed the 7-year Eurobond with a yield of 5.15 percent, Refinitiv IFR reported. The deal took place days after the U.S. Treasury lifted sanctions on major Russian companies Rusal and En+.

"About half of the book came in from American investors. This is the evidence that the market has a rather constructive attitude towards Russian borrowers, and Gazprom, in particular," Tavrovsky said.

The rest of the demand came mostly from Europe, while less than 10 percent came from Russia and less than 3 percent from Asia, Kirill Kondrashin, head of debt capital markets at JP Morgan in Russia and CIS, added.

According to Kondrashin, initial demand for Gazprom's Eurobond exceeded $5 billion, but this had declined to $3.5 billion by the time the book closed as the company had cut its yield guidance.

It was the first Russian dollar-denominated Eurobond since February 2018 and Gazprom's largest dollar-denominated Eurobond since 2009, Tavrovsky said.

"The demand was very high, it was obvious that investors were hungry for quality issues from Russia. In fact, Gazprom has opened the market for placements in dollars for Russian borrowers after a long break," he added.

The share of U.S. dollar-denominated debt in Gazprom's net debt had fallen to 34 percent as of mid-2018 from 46 percent at the end of 2016, while the share of euro debt had risen to 38 percent from 34 percent. (Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; Writing by Polina Devitt; Editing by Mark Potter)