Page 8 - AsianOil Week 04 2023

AsianOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AsianOil

Iran’s oil exports reportedly surging under

banner of shipments from Malaysia

IRAN IRAN’S oil exports are reportedly surging thanks barrels/day of oil in November, and in December
to shadow market barrels sent to China under stayed near the highest level seen in four years.
Malaysia was the third- the banner of shipments from Malaysia. Malaysian waters have long been used by oil
biggest provider of oil to The official data show Malaysia as China’s traders dodging sanctions by transferring crude
China last month. third-biggest provider of crude last month, and petroleum products from one tanker to
behind only Saudi Arabia and Russia, but Malay- another, sometimes disguising the origin. Bar-
sian exports to China on that scale are unfeasi- rels from Iran and Venezuela are known to have
ble, noted Bloomberg on January 20, saying they been re-branded as oil from Malaysia and Oman
were almost triple the average daily crude output before being shipped to China, the world’s big-
from the Southeast Asian nation over 9M22. gest oil importer.
“China’s crude imports from Iran picked up to The records show that during last year
a new record in the last month of 2022,” Armen China imported 35.7mn tonnes of crude from
Azizan, an analyst at Vortexa, said in a report. It Malaysia.
also noted that Iran—which has to sell oil under Officially, China has only imported oil from
the radar given US sanctions—exported 1.3mn Iran four times since the end of 2020. ™

Pakistan to receive Russian crude in March

PAKISTAN WEEKS of negotiations have led to an agree- economic co-operation accords and agreed to
ment by Pakistan and Russian concerning the work on a comprehensive plan for energy co-op-
Pakistan will pay in importing to Pakistan of Russian crude oil. Paki- eration that would be completed during 2023.
currencies considered stan will pay for the discounted crude with cur- The two sides also agreed to further their
“friendly” to Moscow. rencies that are “friendly” to Moscow, according plans for the proposed Pakistan Stream Gas
to Russian Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov, Pipeline project, which was originally agreed by
who was in Islamabad for an annual intergov- the two countries in 2015 with a plan that Russia
ernmental trade and economy meeting, on Janu- would build the 1,100-km pipeline and operate it
ary 19. The deal is expected to be concluded and for 25 years, after which ownership would trans-
deliveries begin by late March. fer to Pakistan. The government of Imran Khan
The volume of oil that Moscow will supply renegotiated the deal whereby Pakistan would
was not disclosed, but Pakistan has been in the hold 74% of the project and Russia 26%. Current
grip of an energy crisis for a considerable time, cost estimates for infrastructure construction are
spanning the course of the Covid-19 pandemic put at around $2.25bn.
and the market turmoil resulting from Russia’s The project was initially known as the North-
invasion of Ukraine. Russia has addressed the South, or PakStream pipeline. It will stretch from
international sanctions levelled against it for the port of Karachi on the Arabia Sea coast to
the invasion by selling its crude oil at a discount. Kasur in Punjab. Considering the demands that
India and China are major customers for Russian Russia is now facing with its war in Ukraine,
oil despite the sanctions. it is unclear as to when Moscow will have the
Pakistan’s energy problems are exacerbated resources available to devote to the project.
by a balance of payments crisis leaving it unable Earlier this week Pakistan experienced a near
to purchase oil and LNG at international prices, nationwide energy blackout brought about by an
which have skyrocketed. The country’s foreign attempt by the government to conserve energy.
exchange reserves have declined to $4.6bn, Hoping to save fuel, the authorities agreed to
enough to cover three weeks of the country’s have the electricity turned off during the low
imports. usage hours overnight. But the move left the sys-
During the eighth session of the Paki- tem without enough energy to boot up the sys-
stan-Russia Intergovernmental Commission, tem on Monday morning, resulting in a power
which was co-chaired by Shulgirov and Paki- outage throughout the country for 12 hours or
stani Minister for Economic Affairs Sardar more. At technical fault caused a similar nation-
Ayaz Sadiq, the two sides signed a number of wide blackout in Pakistan in January 2021. ™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 27•January•2023