Page 14 - FSUOGM Week 30 2019

FSUOGM
FSUOGM
Russia need better oil quality control: Novak
Russian oil companies need to enforce better quality control of their oil, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak stated on July 26. .
e comment comes several months a er Russia’s so-called dirty oil crisis, in which millions of barrels of Russian oil was contaminated with organic chlorides in the Druzhba transport system.
July 26 2019
Rosneft reportedly sells
three ESPO loads to Vitol,
ChemChina
Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosne has sold three 740,000-barrel batches of ESPO
crude blend for September loading to Vitol and ChemChina, Reuters sources claimed, at a $5.50- 5.80 per barrel premium to Dubai quotes.
e cargoes will be loaded in the periods September 5-10, September 10-15 and September 20-25. Last week Surgutne egaz, a private Russian oil company, sold four ESPO shipments for September at a $5.50-6.00 premium. Rosne also o oaded two cargoes for August last month to ChemChina at a $3.80- 3.90 premium.
July 29 2019
Nord Stream completes annual maintenance
e 55bn cubic metre per year Nord Stream gas pipeline has restored exports to Europe following ten days of annual maintenance work, its operator said on July 27.
According to the Nord Stream operating company, which is 51%-owned by Russia’s Gazprom, the pipeline is now working at full capacity. ose that receive the pipeline’s gas were noti ed well in advance of the outage, it said.
Ukraine notably bene ted from the disruption, with its national pipeline operator Ukrtransgas reporting on July 19 a 25% spike in transit volumes of Russian gas.
July 29 2019
EASTERN EUROPE
Ukraine’s Interpipe
seeks talks with US over
antidumping duties
Ukraine’s largest steel pipe producer Interpipe has started consultations on preparing a
new agreement with the US Department of Commerce (DOC) on the suspension of the antidumping investigation regarding pipes in exchange for price commitments, according to a company statement. e DOC cancelled its agreement signed with Interpipe in 2014 over the suspension of the antidumping investigation. e DOC has also issued an order imposing duties on certain types of Interpipe pipe products from July 10.
As part of the 2014 agreement, Interpipe supplied oil and gas pipes to the US at fair market prices in exchange for the suspension of the DOC’s antidumping investigation regarding pipes. e agreement enabled the avoidance of price dumping and suspended the duty in the amount of 7.47%. Initially, the agreement expired on July 10, 2017, but it was extended lately for two years.
Dmytro Khoroshun at Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capital was “skeptical” about Interpipe’s ability to negotiate with
the DOC, “because of the very fact that the company was unable to persuade the DoC to extend the existing agreement”.
Concorde estimated that if Interpipe continued selling into the US at 2018 volumes (about 100 tonnes), it would lose up to around $7mn in annual revenue and Ebitda due to the duties. Such a loss is about 6% of the $120mn mentioned in the media as the company’s 2017 Ebitda.
bne Intellinews, July 23 2019
Ukrainian gas prices down 5.5% in August
Ukrainian gas prices are to fall 5.5% month on month in August, according to the country’s cabinet, to UAH4,640 hryvnias per 1,000 cubic metres. According to PM Volodymyr Groysman, residential gas prices in Ukraine have fallen by 25% in the past three months, following changes to the way prices are equated.
July 23 2019
Moldova sees 25-30% discount for Russian gas
Moldova is seeking a 25-30% reduction in the price it pays Russia for gas, President Igor Dodon told the RTR Moldova channel on July 26. “Moldova needs a discount of 25-30% on the current gas supplies, or we will have to raise the tari s,” he said. “Taking into account the fact that Moldova is an observer in the [Eurasian Economic Union], my goal is to convince [Russia] to provide us with a discount.” Moldova’s long-term agreement with Russia for gas supplies is due to expire at the end of this year. e country bought 2.9bn cubic metres of Russian gas last year. Should Ukraine’s transit of Russian gas
be terminated at the end of 2019, Dodon warned
it would be hard for Moldova to obtain alternative supplies from its other neighbours.
July 26 2019
CENTRAL ASIA & SOUTH CAUCASUS
SOCAR expands in Georgia
e Georgian subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s SOCAR has acquired 94 new gas pipelines for $8.6mn, the company reported on July 26. e pipelines are located mainly in the Zestafoni, Kaspi
and Lanchkhuti regions, and were sold by the Georgian government. SOCAR Georgia supplies 250,000 customers with gas and invested around $290mn in the country between 2008 and 2017. It imported 1.4bn cubic metres of gas into the country during that period.
July 24 2019
SOCAR opens rst Austrian lling station
Azerbaijan’s SOCAR has opened its rst lling station in Austria, the company’s Swiss-based subsidiary SOCAR Energy Holdings has said. e station is situated in the city of Graz in the Eggendberg district. Another SOCAR- brand lling station will open in Graz in late July, according to the company. Over the next few years some 82 A1 lling stations will be rebranded as SOCAR. SOCAR bought them in late 2017.
July 22 2019
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Week 30 31•July•2019