Page 13 - FSUOGM Week 39 2021

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM

Hungary long-term gas deal with Gazprom

HUNGARY HUNGARY’S utility giant MVM has signed a the south, through Hungary's interconnector
10+5-year gas supply agreement with Russia's with Serbia, and 1 bcm via the pipeline running
Ukraine is not happy Gazprom on September 27 that will guarantee from Austria.
that Hungary has Hungary's energy security for a long time and The agreement has an option to lower deliv-
agreed to get its gas via at a low price, Minister of Foreign Affairs and ery volumes after the tenth year.
another route. Trade Peter Szijjarto said at the signing cere- "Hungary will start receiving Gazprom's gas
mony in Budapest. starting from October 1 via TurkStream and the
The long-term gas contract between Hungary pipelines of South-Eastern Europe," Gazprom's
and Russia has been in place for 26 years, but will head Alexei Miller said in a statement.
expire at the end of September. Hungary has cov- In both cases, delivery will bypass Ukraine,
ered 80-90% of its gas needs, some 9-10bn cubic which has rekindled tensions between Budapest
metres from Russia, delivered through Ukraine, and Kyiv. In a statement issued on Monday, the
until now. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed disap-
Gazprom delivered 8.6 bcm of gas to Hun- pointment with Budapest's decision to sign the
gary in 2020, down from 10.5 bcm in 2019. agreement with Moscow.
Deliveries in H1 came to 3.9 bcm. Ukraine will postpone the meeting of the
"In Hungary, energy supply is a security, sov- Ukrainian-Hungarian Intergovernmental Com-
ereignty and economic issue, not a political one. mission for Economic Co-operation scheduled
Homes and houses cannot be heated with politi- for September 29-30 in Budapest. The new con-
cal resolutions, but with gas, and the same is true tract damages the bilateral Ukrainian-Hungar-
for the viability of industry," Szijjarto said. ian relations and therefore Kyiv is going to appeal
The price in the contract is much more to the European Commission, it added.
favourable than the one in the existing contract, Budapest responded by accusing Ukraine of
which will help keep the Hungarian retail gas attempting to interfere in their affairs.
price one of the lowest in Europe. "Since Gazprom has gas, and we don’t, the
Under the new agreement, Hungary will buy situation is rather unequal. So along whichever
4.5 bcm of gas per year from the Russian state- route they deliver the gas, we’ll buy it," Szijjarto
owned giant, including 3.5 bcm delivered from added. ™

First modules arrived at Arctic LNG-2

RUSSIA THE first modules for the first train of Novatek’s per year (tpy). Novatek reiterated this week that
Arctic LNG-2 LNG terminal have arrived in the project remained on schedule, in spite of
Another two modules Murmansk, the operator said on September 21. some delays caused last year by coronavirus
have been loaded onto The pipe-rack modules, weighing some 9,000 (COVID-19) restrictions in China and Russia.
a ship in China. tonnes apiece, were delivered from the port of Novatek operates Arctic LNG-2 with a 60%
Zhousan in China to Novatek’s LNG construc- stake, while French partner TotalEnergies and
tion yard in Murmansk in north-west Russia. China’s CNPC and CNOOC each have 10%.
They will be skidded onto the first train’s grav- Japanese firms Mitsui and JOGMEC have 5%
ity-based structure platform. stakes.
Another two modules have been loaded onto While a final investment decision (FID) was
a ship in China and are currently on route to taken on Arctic LNG-2, Novatek and its partners
Murmansk. 14 units in total will be delivered for are still seeking some $11bn in external financ-
the first train, Novatek said. ing from international investors. Novatek CEO
“This major achievement demonstrates a Leonid Mikhelson said at the start of this month
strong involvement of thousands of people and that Japanese and Chinese banks might pro-
robust collaboration between Technip Energies vide more funds, and some $1bn was expected
and all parties, especially our customer Novatek to come from France and Germany. However,
and its partners along with our partners and sub- European environmentalists have urged their
contractors,” Technip Energies, which supplied governments not to support the project because
the modules, commented. “We will continue the of its climate impact.
same path to complete all shipments and instal- “We have [European] partners in place, while
lations for the first gravity-based structure by the we don’t see support from the government of
beginning of the next year.” these partners,” Mikhelson said. “We have credit
Arctic LNG-2 will comprise three trains that lines open for the third of the total financing
are due to come on stream in 2023, 2024 and from the Russian banks. We can raise it from a
2025, raising its overall capacity to 19.8mn tonnes third to 60%.” ™

Week 39 29•September•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13