Page 13 - FSUOGM Week 43 2019

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
Gazprom Neft starts on $470mn catalyst unit
RUSSIA
Russia’s refining sector relies heavily on catalyst imports.
RUSSIA’S Gazprom Neft has broken ground on a new high-tech facility for the production of cata- lysts at its refinery in Omsk.
The facility, requiring RUB30bn ($470mn) in investment, should be ready for operation in 2021 and capable of producing 21,000 tonnes per year of catalysts. It will replace an existing 3,000 tpy catalyst unit at the plant, complying with the latest, more stringent environmental standards.
Catalysts play an essential role in com- plex refining, speeding up chemical reactions involved in producing lighter products such as gasoline and diesel. Currently Russia is heavily reliant on catalyst supplies from overseas.
“Gazprom Neft’s project will ensure Russian refining is independent from foreign-produced catalyst, as well as securing stability in the pro- duction of higher-quality fuels,” the company’s CEO Alexander Dyukov said in a statement. “Cutting-edge equipment and unique scientific developments by Russian scientists and academ- ics are making it possible to manufacture prod- ucts that surpass foreign alternatives in terms of theirqualityandeffectiveness.”
The new facility will produce 15,000 tpy of catalytic cracking catalysts and 4,000 tpy of
hydrotreatment catalysts, used to produce gaso- line and diesel, as well as 2,000 tpy of hydrocrack- ing catalysts, used in deep refining processes.
As part of Russia’s broader import substitu- tion drive, Gazprom Neft’s catalyst project was listed by the government as a national priority in 2015, and earlier this year also received state funding support.
Russian demand for catalysts used in cat- alytic cracking reached 11,300 tonnes in 2018, with 63% met by local production and the rest by imports. However, Russia relies on imports to cover 100% of its consumption of hydro- treatment and hydrocracking catalysts, which totalled 4,900 tonnes last year.
Gazprom Neft’s unit will primarily serve the domestic market, though it may also ship off its spare catalytic cracking catalysts to other CIS countries and further afield, including to the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
Gazprom Neft is Russia’s third-biggest refiner after Rosneft and Lukoil, with a processing capacity exceeding 40mn tpy (800,000 barrels perday)ofcrudeoil.TheOmskplantisitslargest oil refining complex, processing around 400,000 bpd.™
RUSSIA
Russia revives African
ambitions with summit in
Sochi
Russia hosted the first ever Russia-Africa summit in Sochi on October 23-24, with more than 50 African leaders and 3,000 delegates invited to foster economic and diplomatic relations.
This makes the third major event aimed at improving Russia’s presence in Africa in the last year, after special African Focus at the 2018 St Petersburg Economic Forum and the Russia-SADC business forum that was held in February 2019 in Moscow.
The Sochi summit is chaired by the Russian President Vladimir Putin himself and the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, with Egypt, together with Algeria, making up the lion’s share of Russia’s trade with Africa.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Trade between Russia and sub-Saharan Africa jumped to $4.8bn in 2018 last year from $1.8bn in 2010. In 2018, Russia’s exports to sub-Saharan Africa totalled $3bn, while imports from sub-Saharan Africa came in at $1.7bn.
Algeria together with Egypt, Morocco, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa account for about 80% per cent of Africa’s exports to Russia. In the meantime, energy has become the main sector for Russian investments and the concept of energy diplomacy has emerged with investments made in gas, oil, and nuclear power.
bne IntelliNews, October 24 2019
Gazpromsecuresstateloan for Amur GPP
Gazprom has secured a credit line worth EUR4bn ($4.45bn) from Russia’s state-owned VTB bank to fund continuing construction of the Amur gas processing plant (GPP) in
the Far East, the bank’s CEO said on October
24.
Speaking at the Eurasian Economic Forum
in Verona, Andrey Kostin explained that VTB was issuing the funds as part of a syndicate agreement with other lenders. Gazprom has been building the Amur GPP since October 2015. The plant, which will process gas being supplied to China via Power of Siberia, will first operating in April 2021 and reach its
full 42bn cubic metre per year capacity three years later. It has a total cost of RUB950bn ($14.9bn).
bne IntelliNews, October 17 2019
Novatek bolsters use of eurosincontracts
Russia’s top LNG exporter Novatek now prices most of its export contracts in euros rather than US dollars, company head Leonid Mikhelson told reporters on October 24.
“American legal entities and individuals cannot provide loans to us ... We mainly use
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