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the TurkStream to Turkish consumers (via the first line of the gas pipeline), as well as to consumers in Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, and Romania (via the second line of the gas pipeline). The volume of Russian gas pumped through the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2020 increased to 59.28 bcm from 28.5 bcm in 2019, supplies via Blue Stream decreased to 8.76 bcm against 11.1 bcm a year earlier.
Goldman Sachs expects global oil demand to realize the biggest jump ever over the next six months, the investment bank said on April 29, keeping its bullish forecasts for oil prices this summer. Higher demand for travel and acceleration of vaccinations in Europe are set to result in “the biggest jump in oil demand ever, a 5.2 million barrels per day (bpd) rise over the next six months,” Reuters quoted Goldman Sachs as saying in a note to clients. Goldman Sachs continues to see oil rising to $80 per barrel this summer and says that “The magnitude of the coming change in the volume of demand – a change which supply cannot match – must not be understated,” as carried by FXStreet.
Representatives of MinFin, MinEnergo and oil companies commented on oil taxation at an industry conference. MinFin insists that it does not intend to make any largescale changes to oil industry taxation before 2024, i.e. highly viscous oil (HVO) is to be moved to EPT not earlier than in 2024. When this happens, HVO is likely to be included in the third EPT group. MinFin is pleased with the results of transitioning depleted fields to EPT. Tatneft’s Deputy CEO Azat Yagafarov said the company thinks that depleted fields should be moved to a separate EPT group, as the EPT regime was created with Western Siberian fields in mind. In its current state, EPT results in differing returns for oil companies, with Tatneft’s return being lower. According to a Tatneft representative, the recent tax changes result in the company’s production being 98mnt lower than it could have been otherwise, with RUB 225bn lower investments and the ensuing loss of some RUB 1tn of the government budget’s revenues. Gazprom Neft might consider producing more gas at the Novoportovskoye field in the wake of last year’s tax changes. The company hopes to bring the negative effect of tax changes for the field to zero within three years. MinFin is studying Rosneft’s FEPCO project and might participate in the financing of infrastructure. MinEnergo supports the provision of tax relief to O&G projects in Eastern Siberia.
The government asked the Ministry of Energy to prepare changes to the law that would allow it to ban gasoline exports to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union promptly when such a need arises, Kommersant reports. The changes to the law will not entail an automatic ban on exports. The government is unlikely to go through with the ban on exports in the near future and we think that domestic gasoline deliveries will grow in the wake of the threshold damper price being lowered on 1 May. In February 2021, the amount of gasoline exported amounted to just 13% of the volume produced in Russia, so even if the export ban is introduced we would not see a tangible effect from this on oil companies. Surgutneftegas (exports some 70% of the gasoline it produces) might lose up to USD 7mn (around 1% of EBITDA), on our numbers, were gasoline exports to be banned for three months, with the company having to sell all of its gasoline on the domestic market (under the current FX rate and product prices).
123 RUSSIA Country Report June 2021 www.intellinews.com