Page 14 - FSUOGM Week 03 2020

FSUOGM
FSUOGM
Northern Sea Route for 2020.
Mikhelson reportedly pleaded directly
to President Vladimir Putin in November, arguing that the lack of state support puts the second LNG project Arctic LNG-2 at risk.
Reportedly, Novatek requested RUB124bn ($2bn) for the federal infrastructure, such as LNG handling terminals in Kamchatka and Murmansk, as well as Utrennny terminal, but has not been included in the 2020 federal budget draft. The only funding planned is RUB41bn in 2022.
bne IntelliNews, January 17 2020
Courts unfreeze Gazprom assets
The seizure of Gazprom assets in England and Wales, Luxembourg and the Netherlands has terminated by courts at the request of Ukraine’s Naftogaz.
Naftogaz agreed to cease all legal action against Gazprom in late December in return for Gazprom agreeing to settle
a $2.92bn Stockholm arbitration court. Gazprom confirmed in a statement on January 2020 that its assets including its UK-registered Blue Stream and South Stream Transport subsidiaries had been unfrozen. The subsidiaries operate the Blue Stream and TurkStream gas pipelines respectively.
bne IntelliNews, January 21 2020
EASTERN EUROPE
Naftogaz is Ukraine’s top tax payer in 2019
Ukraine’s natural gas monopolist Naftogaz remains the biggest tax payer in the country after it paid UAH120.3bn ($306.8mn) in taxes and dividends to the state and local budgets in 2019,
the company said in a press release on January 16.
The payment included UAH22.3bn of income tax, UAH32.3 of VAT, UAH32.2bn of royalty, UAH20.8bn of dividends, with UAH15.1bn of taxes and dividends for 2019 paid in advance in 1Q19 as agreed with the Ministry of Finance, the company said.
Naftogaz group’s contribution accounted for nearly 16% of the state budget revenue in 2019.
bne IntelliNews, January 16 2020
Russia, Belarus secure
deal on ‘methods of
compensation’ for low-
quality oil supplies
Belarus and Russia have come to an agreement on approaches and methods of providing a compensation for polluted oil, according to the Belarusian government.
The sides reached an agreement
on approaches and methods of the compensation for polluted oil. No specific details were revealed, according to news agency BelTA.
In April, Belarus, Ukraine, some Central European countries and Germany suspended oil imports via
the Druzhba pipeline after finding contaminants that could damage refinery equipment. Russia’s law enforcement agencies and oil pipeline operator Transneft launched a criminal investigation into possible deliberate contamination of oil.
In July, Minsk said that the exports of Belarusian state-owned oil and petroleum conglomerate Belneftekhim shrank by $800mn in 2019 compared with the previous year due to the crisis over the poor-quality oil supplies from Russia.
In May, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Lyashenkon said Minsk was going to seek compensation for the direct and indirect losses caused by the poor- quality oil. “We’ve talked to [our Russian] colleagues. Two kinds of compensations are involved: direct losses of enterprises and indirect losses.
The direct losses are simple to understand - broken equipment,” he said. “Competent groups are working on it. The Russian side has assured us that Belarus
will get compensations for documented expenses. Naturally, we’ve raised the issue of indirect losses, too.”
During the first week of the crisis, Minsk reduced the workload of Mozyr
oil refinery by around 40%, and of Naftan refinery by around 50%. Belarus estimates its revenue losses at around $100mn as a result of Russia’s supplies of low-quality
oil, according to Belneftekhim. Belarus was also forced to suspend exports of light oil products to Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states.
bne IntelliNews, January 21 2020
Belarus finishes
maintenance of Russia-EU
oil pipeline
Belarus has finished planned maintenance on the Druzhba oil pipeline, the main transit route for Russian oil exports to Europe, according to the Belarusian pipeline operator Gomeltransneft Druzhba’s report published on January 20.
The maintenance started on January 14 and at the Mozyr-Gomel III part of the Druzhba pipeline, while oil shipments to Poland were reduced to 70,000 tonnes per day, or half of the usual volumes, in January 14-17.
On January 1-14, the oil supplies had been increased from usual levels to 1.9mn tonnes compared with an expected 3.2mn tonnes for the whole of January. Druzhba splits into two routes in Belarus - a northern leg to Poland and Germany, and a southern leg to Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
bne IntelliNews, January 21 2020
CENTRAL ASIA & SOUTH CAUSASUS
SOCAR reclaims
1,700 hectares of oil-
contaminated land in past
decade
Azerbaijan’s national oil company Socar has reclaimed 1,700 hectares of land contaminated with oil in the past decade, Trend has reported the enterprise as saying.
The Baku Olympic Stadium and Baku Higher Oil School, as well as an ecological park, are, for instance, built on plots of the reclaimed territories, the January 17 report added.
Socar’s activities include oil and gas exploration and production, oil refining and petrochemical production.
It has three production unions, one oil and gas processing plant, two trusts, one higher educational institution and other infrastructure, the report noted.
bne IntelliNews, January 20 2020
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Week 03 22•January•2020