Page 15 - FSUOGM Week 18

FSUOGM PROJECTS & COMPANIES FSUOGM
Reports of more than 3,000 COVID-19 cases at Siberian gas field
RUSSIA
GAZPROM’S giant Chayandinskoye gas eld in the Far East has become a hotspot for corona- virus (COVID-19) cases in Russia, with health authorities warning that as many as 3,000 work- ers may have been infected.
e eld, which pumps gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline, was placed under quarantine in mid-April to halt the outbreak’s spread. Employees were moved to hospital and free movement to and from the eld was limited.
Workers later staged a mass rally to demand better working conditions and greater transpar- ency in authorities’ handling of the lockdown, local media reported last week.
“ ey’re feeding us animal feed. We’re being held like pigs, are we pigs?” workers could be heardshoutinginavideopublishedbytheYaku- tia.info news website. “Where’s the quarantine? Where are the masks? There’s nothing! They drove us all into dorms, we’re carrying all kinds
of infections.”
While Yakutia governor Aisen Nikolaev
has reported the number of coronavirus cases at only 39, Elena Malinnikova, an infectious disease specialist for the Russian health minis- try, has said that over 3,000 workers have been diagnosed with the virus, a er more than 10,000 were tested.
Gazprom had previously said that production operations at Chayandinskoye are una ected by the lockdown. e eld is expected to ship 5bn cubic metres of gas to China in 2020, rising to 10 bcm in 2021 and a plateau rate of 25 bcm per year in 2022-2023.
In mid-April Gazprom said construction was underway on facilities to achieve this pla- teau. ecompanyalsoaimsto nishbuilding a second compressor station to expand Power of Siberia’s ow capacity by the end of this year.™
RUSSIA
Sibur to launch LPG supplies to India in May
Russia’s largest petrochemical company Sibur will sell two cargoes of lique ed petroleum gas (LPG) to India in May for the rst time ever as it looks for new markets a er demand in Europe fell sharply due to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reported April 30, citing traders and shipping data.
Most European countries have been
in lockdown since March amid the coronavirus pandemic, causing a dramatic fall in fuel consumption. As LPG is widely used in Europe as motor fuel, it was hard hit by the lack of demand.
In India, though, LPG demand is rising this year despite the coronavirus as it is mostly used by private households as cooking gas meaning that its popularity rises during the lockdown.
In March, LPG sales in India rose about 1.9% from February to 2.31 million tonnes, according to the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry.
Moreover, India promised at the end
of March that the state would provide free cooking gas cylinders to poorer citizens for three months, under a scheme meant to nudge them to adopt the cleaner fuel in a
NEWS IN BRIEF
move that is to trigger a surge in LPG sales later this year.
Sibur loaded a vessel, Navigator Luga, with 12,700 tonnes of butane on board
on April 18 and another vessel, Navigator Libra, carrying 11,900 tonnes of propane on April 21 from Ust-Luga port for delivery to India’s Nhava Sheva port close to Mumbai, according to shipping data from Re nitiv Eikon.
e vessels are to arrive on May 11 and 14 respectively, the data shows. According to traders, more shipments of Russian LPG to India in the coming months are currently being negotiated.
Sibur produced 6.45 million tonnes of LPG in 2019, of which about a half was exported, according to the company’s data. Most of Sibur’s LPG sea exports were to northwest Europe in 2019, according to Re nitiv Eikon data.
Sibur didn’t immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.
Russia expects to fulfil OPEC+ deal soon
Russia expects to ful l the new OPEC+ oil output reduction agreement fully very soon, Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin told fund Roscongress in an interview released on
the website of the organisation on May 6. On April 12, the OPEC+ countries
agreed to reduce their oil production by 9.7mn barrels per day in May–June, by 7.7mn bpd in July–December, and by 5.8mn bpd from January 2021 through April
2022. Russia’s share in the reduction will amount to 2.5mn bpd in May–June. e agreement is valid until April 30 2022, but the members will revise its prolongation in December 2021.
e Russian Energy Ministry sees no risk of zero oil prices but some demand risks remain, Sorokin said. “ e market
in general understands that the situation has started to improve... e fact that the OPEC+ agreement will remove additional 10mn barrels (per day) from the market starting this month provides no reason for zero prices now. e risks remain, however, because various development scenarios for demand remain,” Sorokin said.
He added that not all OPEC+ members are to meet the terms of the deal but hopes that they would do their best still.
Operations of re neries and fuel stations in Europe signal an improvement of oil demand, the o cial said, adding
that whereas the earlier demand decrease amounted to 50–70%, it narrowed to 40–60% and in some cases, demand rose by 15%.
e o cial said that the April oil price
Week 18 06•May•2020
w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
P15