Page 9 - FSUOGM Week 24 2019
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FSUOGM INVESTMENT FSUOGM
Turkmenistan gears to launch GTL plant
TURKMENISTAN
TURKMENISTAN’S rst gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant is slated to start up later this month a er a delay of more than half a year.
Gasoline production at the plant in the east- ern Ahal region is scheduled to begin on June 28, Turkmenistan’s deputy Prime Minister for energy, Myratgeldi Meredov, was reported as saying at a government meeting by state media. e event will be marked with a ceremony, he said.
e GTL facility is among a ra of projects underway in Turkmenistan aimed at exploiting the country’s substantial gas resources to pro- duce higher-value products for export. At full capacity, it will annually process almost 1.785 billion cubic metres of gas and produce 600,000 tonnes of Euro-5 standard gasoline, as well as 12,000 tonnes of diesel and 115,000 tonnes of lique ed petroleum gas (LPG). e project car- ries a $1.7bn price tag.
Turkmenistan signed an agreement on con- struction of the facility in 2013 with a consor- tium of Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Turkey’s Ronesans Industries, with the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC) later pledging to cover 85% of project costs.
A ground-breaking ceremony took place the following year, and production was initially slated to start in late 2018. Trial operations were not begun until January this year, however. Turk- men authorities have given no reasons for the delay, nor said how long it will take production to ramp up to full capacity.
Turkmenistan is also looking to expand its access to overseas gas markets by developing the 33 bcm per year Turkmenistan-Afghani- stan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. Turkmen and Afghan o cials met for talks on June 16 in the Afghan province of Herat, where preparatory work is underway for the pipeline’s construction.
e Turkmen government insists that TAPI will start pumping gas from fields in eastern Turkmenistan next year, although there is no evidence that tangible progress has been made in building the pipe. It is understood that Ash- gabat has been unable to raise enough nancing to cover the project’s estimated $10bn cost.
According to Afghanistan’s TOLOnews, the meeting in Herat resulted in a new agreement being signed on the “practical implementation” of TAPI, although details of the deal have not been disclosed.
Former Sibur exec snaps up Russian oil company
RUSSIA
A former head at Russian petrochemical giant Sibur with a colourful history has reportedly acquired a Western Siberian oil producer.
Yakov Goldovsky served as Sibur’s president until his arrest in 2002 on charges of money laundering, following his failed attempt to wres- tle control of the company from its then-major- ity shareholder, state-owned Gazprom. He was released later that year a er agreeing to sell his stake in Sibur to Gazprom for $96mn.
According to sources at Russian business daily Kommersant, Goldovsky has bought a company called First Oil from Gem Cap- ital, an investment vehicle tied to a former Gazprom manager Anatoly Paliya. e deal was nanced by Russian state bank VTB, the sources claim.
First Oil was set up in 2014 and has built up its business through a series of small-scale acquisi- tions. In 2015 it took control of the Sotchemsky and East-Turyshevskoye oil elds from global commodities trader Vitol, and then the follow- ing year, it also bought the Tarkhovskoye eld from local operator New Stream Group.
The company produced 600,000 tonnes (12,000 barrels per day) of oil last year from elds in the regions of Khanty-Mansiysk and Komi, and has an estimated 14mn tonnes (103mn bar- rels) in proven and probable reserves.
Goldovsky’s detention was seen as part of a co-ordinated push by Russian authorities in the early 2000s to rein in some of the country’s more powerful oligarchs and re-establish state control over the oil and gas industry. A year later Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of Russia’s for- mer largest oil company Yukos, was also arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion. His business empire was split up and eventually sold to Ros- ne and other state companies.
Goldovsky continued working in the pet- rochemicals sector a er his withdrawal from Sibur and is the owner of Petrochemical Hold- ing, an Austrian-registered company with assets in Russia, Poland and Romania. Moscow-based nancial consultancy Advance Capital prices the purchase of First Oil at at least US$200mn, tak- ing into account its sizeable proven reserves and its stable cash ow.
Week 24 19•June•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9
