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in Europe, according to Rosneft’s calculations, as reported by Kommersant.
Rosneft stated that granting export access to independent producers might help to utilise the NS1 and NS2 pipelines (as the EU's Third Energy Package places limits on monopolistic access to gas transport infrastructure).
Putin has asked Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and the Head of the Ministry of Finance, Anton Siluanov, to assess the suggestion.
Gazprom has the monopoly on dry gas exports from Russia, under current legislation. Therefore, the law would have to be amended in order to allow other gas producers to export pipeline gas from Russia. We note that requests from independent gas producers to allow gas exports do appear from time to time (usually when the market environment looks more supportive).
“In our view, the potential implementation of this development would be negative for Gazprom. However, it is difficult to quantify the effect right now, as it would likely be a multi-factor impact taking into account both prices and volumes,” says BCS GM.
Rosneft has guided that it plans to increase its gas production in Russia. It raised production at the Rospan International project 76% y/y in 2Q21 (its overall consolidated gas production in Russia increased 9.9% y/y). The second stage of Rospan is to launch later this year (21bcm/a plateau production for the entire project), and next year Rosneft plans to bring Kharampur online (11bcm/a plateau from the first stage).
9.1.2 Automotive sector news
Russia's car and LCV sales (excluding Mercedes-Benz and BMW) decreased 6.5% to 132,640 units in July, according to the latest data from the Association of European Businesses (AEB).
Analysts think that the decline was driven by a combination of the higher base, the persistent shortage of certain models, along with the rush-demand observable during the cooling off in the previous months, as expectations of further price increases have started to moderate. We expect similar trends to
120 RUSSIA Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com