Page 16 - FSUOGM Week 18

FSUOGM
NEWS IN BRIEF
FSUOGM
decrease has never been seen before. “ is year we have found ourselves, I will say, in an unpreceded situation, I mean, demand fell by 30mn bpd during the peak in April. is meant a 30% oil, oil product demand decrease. And such situations have never been seen before, neither in the conditions of a pandemic, nor during the war, nor economic crises, I mean, this has never been seen before,” Sorokin said.
e o cial said that growth of oil demand to 100mn bpd will take time.
According to Sorokin, low oil prices would purge the market from ine cient projects. “If we constantly hold prices above the fair level, which is about $50, we in fact trigger a big number of projects which must not be there on the market in the situation we are in. ese are deep water projects, some projects in Africa and the US, in various geographies,” Sorokin said.
e Russian ministry does not expect
a signi cant recovery of oil production in the U.S. even if the prices return to $45–55, Sorokin said. e U.S. and Canada can cut output by a total of 2.8–4.0mn bpd, he said.
OPEC+ may hold video
conference late May–early
June
Some countries that partake in the OPEC+ agreement are considering a video conference in late May or early June, and plans to hold a meeting on June 10 are still under discussion, a source in one of the OPEC+ delegations told PRIME on May 4.
“Some OPEC countries are considering holding a video conference to discuss
the results of the rst month of the deal’s operation in late May or in early June. ey want to discuss the impact on the market, e ciency, and the risks. At the same time, the date of the planned meeting on June 10 is also under discussion. ere is no certainty about that, the countries have received no invitations
yet,” the source said.
EASTERN EUROPE
Belarus buys 80,000 of crude from Saudi Aramco
Belarus has bought the rst batch of 80,000 tonnes of crude from the Saudi Arabian national oil company (NOC) Saudi Aramco, the nation’s petrochemical conglomerate Belne ekhim said on April 29.
A tanker with crude is expected to deliver this oil to the port of Klaipeda in Lithuania on 11 May, state news agency BELTA reported.
According to o cials in Minsk, Belarus received about 2mn tonnes of oil in April. As much as 1.56mn tonnes was delivered from Russia by pipeline and by rail. e rest was delivered by tankers and extracted in Belarus.
Russian companies will supply oil to Belarus without a premium, which Minsk has refused to pay in January-March, according to Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Rumas. “Since late 2019 Belarus has been negotiating the acquisition of Russian oil for our oil re neries without a premium,” he said.”All the Russian companies will be able to supply oil without a premium.”
Premiums paid to Russian companies were as high as $11.7. Russian companies will reduce this premium by $7. In other words, the companies will supply oil with a premium of $4.7. It will be settled by interbudget transactions, according to Rumas.
In Janaury-March, Belarus was hit by a severe shortage of Russian oil for its two re neries – major money-spinners for the economy – as Moscow halted crude supplies to Belarus on January 1 a er a contract expired, and the two countries are still in negotiations over a new agreement.
Minsk said later in January that it had secured a temporary limited solution on
shipments from companies belonging to Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev, without paying a premium. In previous years Belarus bought oil on terms similar to those for Russian independent re neries, which involved a small premium.
On January 24, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pledged to purchase crude oil “in America, Saudi Arabia and the UAE” following Moscow’s refusal to deliver oil to the post-Soviet nation in 2020 on Minsk’s terms.
In February, Lukashenko pledged to siphon o Russia’s transit oil from the Russia-EU Druzhba oil pipeline, if Moscow failed to supply the “necessary volume” of oil in February. e pipeline splits into two routes in Belarus – a northern leg runs to Poland and Germany, and a southern leg
to Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Rumas added that just like other Russian companies, Rosne had been against selling oil without a premium and had insisted on a full price instead.
CENTRAL ASIA & SOUTH CAUCASUS
SOCAR drills new well at Umid field
SOCAR has started drilling a new gas well at the Umid eld in the Caspian, it said in a statement on May 6.
e Umid-1 platform has been modernised, raising its capacity. SOCAR’s goal is to raise production to 6.6mn cubic metres per day at the eld, from 2.4 mcm per day.
Umid produced 850 mcm of gas in 2019, along with 140,000 tonnes of condensate.
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Week 18 06•May•2020