Page 18 - EurOil Week 15 2022

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil

PGNiG claims final victory over

Gazprom in court

POLAND RUSSIA’S Gazprom has not filed an appeal year, seeking to set the judgement aside, accord-
against Poland’s PGNiG in an arbitration case ing to PGNiG. In March of this year, however,
PGNiG described it as over a long-drawn-out case over past gas prices, the court dismissed the complaint as unfounded,
"the end of the battle." the Polish gas company reported on April 11. the Polish company said.
PGNiG claimed it as “the end of the battle,” The arbitration award is one of several legal
stating that the “the legal path for challenging disputes between PGNiG and Gazprom, who
this judgement by Gazprom has been exhausted.” have been in and out of court cases for years.
Gazprom was required by a Stockholm arbi- PGNiG is seeking to terminate Russian gas
tration court to pay PGNiG $1.5bn in March purchases after its long-term contract with Gaz-
2020 for overpayments for natural gas since prom finishes at the end of this year. It wants to
2014. The Russian gas company agreed to pay the replace those volumes with extra LNG and piped
funds but continued to pursue the issue in court. Norwegian gas via the Baltic Pipe. Officially,
“Gazprom did not appeal a cassation appeal Baltic Pipe is still on track to start flowing gas in
against the judgement of the Court of Appeal October 2022, two months before PGNiG’s long-
in Stockholm dismissing the appeal to set aside term contract with Gazprom expires, but con-
the final judgement of the arbitration tribunal of struction was delayed because of environmental
March 30, 2020,” PGNiG said in a statement. permitting delays in Denmark, which is a transit
Gazprom had filed a complaint in June of that country for the pipeline. ™

Shell warns of $4-5bn

Russian hit

RUSSIA SHELL warned on April 7 it expected to book The newspaper reported on April 9 that the
a write-down charge of between $4 and $5bn in oil mix was being referred to as “Latvian blend.”
The UK major the first quarter on its Russian assets in light of Shell gave the warning in a trading update,
previously said it would its decision to leave the country because of Mos- in which it also estimated its first-quarter
write off only $3.4bn cow’s war in Ukraine. production at between 860,000 and 910,000
of value. The UK major previously said it would write barrels of oil equivalent per day for its inte-
off only $3.4bn in value because of its departure grated gas segment, versus 927,000 boepd in
from Russia, where it has a 27.5% stake in the the previous three-month period. It attrib-
Gazprom-operated Sakhalin LNG plant in the uted the decline to maintenance activities,
Russian Far East, as well as shares in Gazprom including a scheduled turnaround at Pearl
Neft’s Salym Petroleum and Gydan oil develop- GTL in Qatar.
ments in Western Siberia. The company’s overall The company also said it believes it produced
market capitalisation is roughly $205bn. between 7.7mn and 8.3mn tonnes of LNG dur-
Shell is also scaling back its oil and gas trad- ing the first quarter, compared with 7.94mn
ing activities in Russia, after getting in hot water tonnes in the fourth quarter. Its upstream output
for buying a heavily discounted cargo of Russian ranged between 1.9 and 2.05mn boepd, down
Urals oil in early March. According to Bloomb- from 2.16mn boepd previously, in part because
erg, however, the company is continuing Russian it transferred 50,000 boepd of production at its
oil trade but is blending it with crude of another Canada Shales assets to its integrated gas busi-
origin to avoid scrutiny. ness. ™

P18 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 15 15•April•2022