Page 10 - FSUOGM Week 48 2019

FSUOGM POLICY FSUOGM
Ukraine seeks to recover $2.6bn from Gazprom in Latvia
UKRAINE
UKRAINE’S state-owned natural gas monop- oly Naftogaz is seeking to enforce a Stockholm arbitration ruling to recover $2.6bn from Rus- sia’s Gazprom in Latvia, according to Gazprom’s financial report.
According to Russia’s gas monopoly, Gaz- prom became aware of the fact that it had filed a motion with the City of Riga Vidzeme District Court in Latvia to recognise and enforce the decision of the Stockholm arbitration court in the transit case dated February 28 in Latvia and to issue an injunction.
Court sittings related to that motion are scheduled for the end of April 2020, according to Russian media.
Last year, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce ordered Gazprom to pay $4.63bn to Naftogaz for the failure to meet gas transit obligations. However, since the court previously ordered Naftogaz to pay Gazprom for gas supply arrears in January, Gazprom’s net payment after two arbitration decisions was $2.56bn.
In August, Ukraine’s natural gas monopoly Naftogaz says it will recover around $3bn from Russia’s Gazprom by late 2020, following the recent victory in the Stockholm arbitration.
Due to the unwillingness to comply with the arbitration awards, Gazprom’s debt owed to Naf- togaz is increasing by almost $200mn per year in the form of accrued interest. Naftogaz had seized Gazprom’s assets in the UK and the Netherlands, as well as restrictive measures introduced in Lux- embourg and Switzerland.
On October 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukrainy to drop their legal claims relating to the settle- ment of a debt problem and the signing of gas transit and delivery contracts.
“This absurd should be ditched and all claims nullified on all sides,” news agency Interfax quoted Putin as saying in Hungary. “We are prepared for constructive work, both on gas pumping through Ukraine and on gas supplies to Ukraine, and [we will do so] with a significant reduction of the price, different from the one that Ukrainian consumers of the Russian gas have today.” “And that this gas is Russian is no doubt. There are no reverse [flows] there. But never mind, this false reverse. The main thing is that there are obvious bene- fits for Ukraine and for the end consumer: for utilities, for citizens, and for the economy as a whole,” Putin said.™
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
Gazprom unit targets oil at parent’s gas field
RUSSIA
Gazprom is looking to maximising recovery by targeting oil at its gas fields.
GAZPROM Neft has begun producing oil at a gas field belonging to its parent firm Gazprom in Western Siberia, as part of a push to maximise resource recovery.
The producer entered into a contract with Gazprom earlier this year to extract oil trapped in large gas fields across Russia. In a statement on November 29, the company said it had com- menced pilot production at one of these projects, the West-Tarkosalinskoye deposit in Russia’s main gas province of Yamalo-Nenets.
A first horizontal well has been brought on stream at the site and is currently flowing 380 tonnes (2,785 barrels per day) of oil, Gazprom Neft said. Output could reach up to 600 tonnes (4,400 bpd).
West-Tarkosalinskoye has been produc- ing gas and gas condensate for more than two decades, but so far its oil resources – estimated by Gazprom Neft at 40.6mn tonnes (298mn
barrels) – have remained untouched. The field is geologically complex, with reservoirs located at multiple layers and subject to abnormally high pressure, according to the company.
Gazprom Neft is using a mobile unit to treat the field’s oil, owing to a lack of infrastructure in the area. It plans to bring on stream nine wells at the site in total.
The development of oil formations at gas fields is set to play an integral role in Gazprom Neft’s growth plans. At some fields, including the Yamburgskoye field in Yamalo-Nenets, it is targeting Achimov reservoirs located beneath gas-bearing layers. At others, such as the nearby Pestovoye and Yakhinskoye fields, it aims to develop oil rims, which are thin layers of oil cov- ered by a typically much larger gas cap.
Gazprom Neft intends to use horizontal drill- ing, hydraulic fracturing and other advanced methods to recover these resources. ™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 04•December•2019