Page 9 - EurOil Week 07 2022

EurOil POLICY EurOil

EU antitrust regulators to gather more intel

on Gazprom’s European businesses

EU EU antitrust regulators are expected to inten- drive up prices or for political reasons against a
sify information gathering on Gazprom’s backdrop of heightened tensions between Russia
Some analysts have European business, a source told Retuers on and Europe over Ukraine. The company says it
said Gazprom is likely February 14, amid accusations that the com- is complying with its gas supply contracts and
producing at or near pany has been driving up gas prices by with- there is no evidence suggesting this is not the
to its full production holding supply. case. But it has been withholding gas from the
capacity. European Commission (EC) Competition spot market.
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in Jan- However, some analysts have said Gazprom is
uary that she had asked Gazprom and other gas likely producing at or near to its full production
suppliers about the reasons behind gas supply. capacity.
The EC has faced pressure from some member International Energy Agency head Fatih
states, mainly in Eastern Europe, to investigate Birol has also weighed in, claiming in mid-Janu-
Gazprom for alleged market abuses. ary that Gazprom could boost supply by a third
Vestager is yet to take a decision on the next if it wanted.
stage of the investigation, the source told Reu- Gazprom was embroiled in a long-running
ters, although a fact-finding exercise might help antitrust case brought against it by the EC that
build a case against Gazprom. finally ended in 2018, when the company agreed
For its part, the Russian gas giant has repeat- to reform its sales practises in exchange for
edly denied withholding gas supply, either to avoiding a fine. ™

ENERGY TRANSITION

Eni shores up CO2 storage plan

off north England

ITALY ITALIAN major Eni has firmed up plans to store UK East Coast Cluster, designed to decarbonise
CO2 off the coast of north England, announcing industry in northeast England.
Eni wants to use the on February 9 that it had signed memoranda Refining group Essar UK also reported on
depleted Hewett gas of understanding (MoUs) with 19 companies February 9 that it intended to install a £45mn
field to store CO2. interested in using the project to handle their (US$61mn) furnace at the Stanlow refinery that
emissions. will initially run on natural gas but in 2026, will
Eni operates the Liverpool Bay facilities in the source its fuel from a blue hydrogen plant, to be
east Irish Sea as well as the depleted Hewett gas built by Essar and Progressive Energy as part
field, which is currently in its decommissioning of the HyNet project. The furnace will replace
phase and the company wants to convert to store three existing units due to be decommissioned,
CO2. It will serve as a sub-project of the HyNet reducing the refinery’s carbon emissions by an
initiative, aimed at decarbonising industry in expected 16,000 tonnes per year, and by a further
northwest England and in north Wales. 11% once it starts using hydrogen. It is due to be
Six of the agreements were signed in January installed this year and become fully operational
alone, Eni said, noting that the result demon- in 2023. ™
strated that there was a lot of interest among
UK industry in HyNet. HyNet will store 10mn
tonnes per year of CO2 storage capacity by 2030,
while also delivering 80% of the government’s
5-GW target for low-carbon hydrogen produc-
tion by the end of the decade.
HyNet is one of two decarbonisation initia-
tives that is set to receive government funding
and other support this decade. The other is the

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