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month last year, RT informed. “The export of gas to China through the Power of Siberia gas pipeline continues to grow. Supplies regularly exceed our daily contractual obligations. The actual monthly volume of supplies in February is 3.2 times more than in February 2020,” Gazprom said in a statement. The 3,000km (1,864 mile) cross-border pipeline started official deliveries of Russian natural gas to China in 2019. The so-called eastern route’s capacity is 61 billion cubic meters of gas per year, including 38 billion cubic meters for export. Last year, Gazprom supplied 4.1 billion cubic meters of gas to China via the Power of Siberia. It plans to boost exports by an additional six billion cubic meters. The agreement on gas supplies via the Power of Siberia pipeline was reached in 2014, with Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) inking a 30-year contract. It is Gazprom’s biggest-ever agreement and the first natural gas pipeline between Russia and China.
The European gas market will work in a “green winter” regime this summer, this is why the countries will need to pump at least 50% more gas into their underground storages than in the summer of 2020, Russian gas giant Gazprom said in a statement on Tuesday. “The European consumers are still syphoning off the gas from the underground storages, whose reserves plummeted during the winter. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe, 61.1bn cubic meters of gas have been taken off as of March 7, and that the remaining gas in the European underground gas storages is 23.3bn cubic meters below the previous year’s level,” the company said. “Europe will have to pump at least 50% more gas (into the storages) than in the summer of 2020.” The heating season is still going on in Europe, and the gas storages are only 34% full, with the gas content in German storages falling to 29%, the Netherlands to 28%, and in France to 20%. “This means that the European gas market will operate under a ‘green winter’ regime this summer,” the company said.
Russian energy giant Gazprom said it exported 7mn tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2020, and is planning to double annual sales by 2025, Pavel Sedov, the head of LNG exports at Gazprom Export, said, RT reported. Sedov added that Gazprom is still a rather small LNG enterprise, but the company’s portfolio is growing. Gazprom Export focuses on growing markets for natural gas, including LNG in Asia. The company is reportedly planning to ensure the growth of LNG supplies by means of its export facility at Ust-Luga in northwest Russia, which is currently under construction. Gazprom is a majority shareholder in Sakhalin Energy, the operator of the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project, which is engaged in developing the Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye fields in the northeast of the Sakhalin shelf. The project infrastructure includes an LNG plant. The enterprise is partly owned by Shell, which holds 27.5%, Mitsui, with 12.5%, and Mitsubishi Corporation, whose holdings total 10%. In 2020, Sakhalin Energy produced over 11.6mn tons of LNG, the most ever for the project. According to Sedov, Gazprom is also planning to supply carbon-neutral LNG to Europe.
The average price of the Urals oil blend, Russia’s key export, rose by
130 RUSSIA Country Report April 2021 www.intellinews.com