Page 11 - FSUOGM Week 11

FSUOGM PERFORMANCE FSUOGM
FSU to add 900,000 bpd of refining capacity by 2024: GlobalData
RUSSIA
Russia is undertaking maintenance at a time when it wants to free up oil for export to expand its market share.
THE former Soviet Union is expected to expand its refining capacity from 8.7mn barrels per day in 2019 to 9.6mn bpd by 2024, according to an outlook report published by London-based ana- lytics firm GlobalData.
Some 537,000 bpd of extra capacity will come from expansions at existing refineries, while the remaining 332,000 bpd will relate to newbuild planned and announced projects.
Russia alone should boost its oil refining capacity by just under 485,000 bpd by 2024, GlobalData said. Some 463,000 bpd of this capacity will be added at existing refineries, while the remainder will come from newbuild projects. The biggest upcoming project is at Gazprom Neft’s refinery in Moscow, which is due to ramp up its capacity by 106,000 bpd by 2021.
Russia will account for 56% of total capacity growth in the former Soviet region during the period, according to GlobalData.
Georgia has unveiled plans for a 100,000 bpd newbuild refinery in the Black Sea port of Supsa, due to start up in 2022. It has also decided to construct an 84,000 bpd new refinery in Kulevi, also on the Black Sea. Both plants will have ready access to oil from Georgia’s neighbour Azerbai- jan via existing pipelines. Estonia also aims to build a 60,000 bpd plant in the coastal town of Sillamae by 2022.
Maintenance
Russian refineries are also preparing to begin their spring maintenance in late March, with work being spread over the next few months, according to Platts.
Five Rosneft refineries will undergo mainte- nance at some of their units starting this month. These plants are Ryazan (342,000 bpd), Ufaneft- ekhim (190,000 bpd), Ufa (132,000 bpd), Novoil (142,000 bpd) and Novokuybishev (164,000 bpd). A 314,000 bpd plant in Yaroslavl operated by Slavneft, a joint venture between Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, will also carry out partial main- tenance in April.
Lukoil’s 340,000 bpd Norsi and 243,000 bpd Moscow refineries will also undergo work in April, while its 314,000 bpd Volgograd plant has maintenance scheduled for September. The com- pany’s 262,000 bpd Perm and 80,000 bpd Ukhta facilities will also have work carried out at some point this year.
These maintenance runs will free up some oil for export at a time when Russia is looking to expand its market share overseas once the OPEC+ deal on supply cuts expires at the end of March. Talks between Russia and the other lead member of the producers’ alliance, Saudi Arabia, ended earlier this month without an agreement being reached to extend production limits. ™
KMG profits soar on gas exports, non-rec items
KAZAKHSTAN
KMG made non- recurring gains from joint ventures.
KAZAKHSTAN’S KazMunayGas (KMG) has reported a sharp increase in profits for 2019, on the back of increased gas exports to China and non-recurring gains.
Net income soared 67% to KZT1.16tn ($3bn), the producer said in results published on March 12, while Ebitda grew 15% to KZT1.96tn.
Revenues were relatively stable, down only 1.9% to KZT6.86tn despite a 10% dip in the Brent oil price to $64.21 and oil production remaining flat at 23.6mn tonnes (474,000 barrels per day, (bpd)). The lower oil price was offset by depreciation of the Kazakh tenge and a growth in gas exports to China.
KMG sold 7.13bn cubic metres of gas to China in 2019, up from 4.4 bcm in the previous year, and shipments are expected to reach 10 bcm per year under a supply deal signed in late 2018. The company sold an additional 1.67 bcm of gas to Russian last year, with overall gas export revenues rising 22.9% to KZT674bn.
Gas production was up 3.9% at 8.46 bcm. KMG also benefitted from a KZT168bn gain in
2019 from “the full recovery of accumulated unac- knowledged losses of AGP,” it said. AGP (Asia Gas Pipeline) is a joint venture KMG has with Chinese partners that manages the Kazakh section of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline system.
In addition, the company saw its financial income expand by 49.6% to KZT241bn, thanks to the cancellation of loans worth KZT111bn from its partners in the Pearls block in the Caspian Sea. KMG had been working with its Pearls partners Royal Dutch Shell and Oman Oil on a plan to develop the block’s Khazar field jointly with the nearby Kalamkas-Sea deposit. The latter is oper- ated by the North Caspian Operating Co. (NCOC) consortium, which also involves KMG and Shell.
Kazakh officials confirmed in November that the foreign investors had relinquished rights to the resources, after determining that bringing them into production would be too challenging.
KMG has interests in almost all of Kazakh- stan’s major upstream projects, and also controls the country’s entire oil and gas pipeline networks and several refineries. ™
Week 11 19•March•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P11