Page 107 - RusRPTMay19

did not consult with Shell about bringing in the firm, which is called RusGazDobycha, but instead presented it with the plan as a fait accompli.RusGazDobycha is 100 percent-owned by a firm called National Gas Group (NGG), according to the Spark database, which collates official data from the tax agency and the state statistics agency. Until November 2016, Rotenberg had a 51 percent stake in NGG, the database shows. The majority owner of NGG now is Artyom Obolensky, who is also chairman of the board of SMP Bank, controlled by Arkady Rotenberg and his brother Boris.
Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) refused to index the transportation tariffs for Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, arguing that the company does not present “transparent data,” Interfax reported on April 24 citing the head of the watchdog Igor Artemyev. The last time tariffs for independent gas producers were indexed was in 2015, by 2% y/y. At the same time, independent producers call for the reduction of tariffs, BCS Global Markets reminds on April 25. Gazprom owns and operates all the main gas pipelines in the country, with independent gas producers, even the largest such as Novatek and Rosneft, having to pay for using the pipeline infrastructure. In particular, Novatek has been active in lobbying for zero indexation or reduction of tariffs.
Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom might have to rely on Linde industrial group to supply technology for its Baltic LNG plant after Shell has pulled out of the project last week, Reuters reported citing unnamed sources. Recently Gazprom has considerably upgraded the project of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal Baltic LNG on the Baltic Sea port of Ust- Luga, but also confirmed that its main partner Royal Dutch Shell would be quitting the project. Now the petro-chemical gas group Linde could provide the technology that can potentially be used for the Baltic LNG, the company said in its presentation at an industry conference in Germany in January, Reuters reports. "The choice is clear now because Shell has left the project and declined to provide its technology," the sources told Reuters. The know-how required to launch the project is to freeze sea-borne gas to temperatures below minus 160 degrees Celsius. Liquefaction technologies have not been affected by the sanctions on imports of hydrocarbon extraction technology imposed on Russia.
Russia's third largest oil producer Gazprom Neft has reported losses across all of its refineries in the first quarter of 2018, with the petrol business being loss-making, the CEO of the company Alexander Dyukov told Vedomosti daily on March 29. As reported by bne IntelliNews, Russia's downstream sector is heavily overregulated and subject to much uncertainty. In November 2018 amid ongoing concerns over high gasoline prices Russian oil companies agreed to lower the wholesale gasoline and diesel prices and then freeze them. "We have been burdened with additional obligations on the domestic market, which made us drop the wholesale prices for petrol and endure double losses," Dyukov complains. The companies working in the refining are caught between a rock and a hard place as they have to take investment decision on modernisation of refineries, while at same time face state regulated prices. Vedomosti cites estimates of Vygon Consulting claiming that Russian oil majors lost about RUB110bn in January-February 2019 by supplying oil products and motor fuel to the domestic rather than the foreign market, as demanded by the government. Out of that only RUB32bn were compensated on export duty netbacks.
Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom has considerably upgraded the
107 RUSSIA Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com