Page 17 - AsianOil Week 01 2021

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per year Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), was Vostok Oil comprises a group of oilfields in
completed in October. Russia’s far north. Rosneft has pinned its hopes
Italy is contracted to receive 8 bcm per year for keeping output levels steady over the coming
of gas from TAP, while Bulgaria and Greece have decades on these sites, as its older deposits fur-
agreed to take 1 bcm per year each. ther south are nearly depleted.
All eyes will now be on the binding phase The fields are slated to yield more than 2mn bar-
of a market test for TAP’s potential expansion rels per day (bpd) at their peak and may also con-
to 20 bcm per year, scheduled to take place in tain natural gas as well. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin
the summer of 2021. There are questions about recently speculated that Vostok Oil might even-
whether Europe will need this extra supply, given tually be able to deliver as much as 50mn tonnes
Southeast Europe a projected decline in demand as a result of the per year (tpy) of LNG to the world market.
Meanwhile, Rosneft has also consolidated its
started importing energy transition and ample alternative sources control over Vostok Oil by buying out a private
of supply.
One such source is the Krk LNG terminal in partner. The company announced over the hol-
natural gas from Croatia, which received its first LNG tanker on iday break that it had closed the acquisition of
two new sources January 1. The terminal has an import capacity 100% stakes in firms called Taimyrneftegaz and
at the start of of 2.6 bcm per year and will serve customers not Taimyrburservis. The former is a subsidiary of
Neftegazholding, a private oil firm with rights to
only in Croatia but in some neighbouring coun-
this year tries as well. Some 80% of this capacity has been the Payakha fields, which will be part of Vostok
Oil, as well as other large onshore licences.
leased, mostly to Qatar.
Greece, meanwhile, plans to build a second The ins and outs of Rosneft’s transaction
LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis that will be with Neftegazholding are unclear. However, the
capable of bringing ashore some 5.5 bcm per available evidence suggests that some form of
year of gas. North Macedonia’s government asset swap is underway. Russia’s company reg-
said earlier this week that it wanted to take a istry shows that Neftegazholding has become
10% stake in the project. The project’s existing the owner of a 9% share in RN-Severnaya Neft,
shareholders are Greece’s Copelouzos energy a Rosneft subsidiary working in the Timan-Pe-
group, as well as DEPA Commercial, the coun- chora Basin.
try’s main gas supplier, and Monaco-based LNG In other news, the Austro-Romanian oil
carrier owner GasLog. Bulgaria’s Bulgartransgaz firm OMV Petrom has agreed to sell its assets in
and Greece’s DESFA are also set to participate as Kazakhstan to a local private company, drawing
investors. a close to two decades of work in the country.
OMV Petrom will transfer 100% interests in its
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping Kazakh subsidiaries Kom-Munai and Tasbulat
Europe’s oil and gas sector then please click here for Oil to a private company based in Nur-Sultan
NewsBase’s EurOil Monitor. called Magnetic Oil. Kom-Munai controls the
Komsomolskoye oilfield in Kazakhstan’s Man-
FSU: Rosneft’s Arctic plays gistau Province bordering the Caspian Sea, while
Rosneft closed the sale of a 10% interest in its Tasbulat Oil manages the nearby Tasbulat con-
Vostok Oil venture in the Russian Arctic to cession, which contains the Aktas, Tasbulat and
commodities trader Trafigura in late December, Turkmenoi deposits.
thereby taking the ambitious project one step
closer to realisation. If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
The price Trafigura paid for the stake has the former Soviet Union’s oil and gas sector then please
not been disclosed. But given the resources at click here for NewsBase’s FSU Monitor.
play – Rosneft has estimated Vostok Oil’s liquid
reserves at 6bn barrels – this likely represents the GLNG: A busy period
biggest foreign investment in Russia’s oil indus- Various developments took place across the global
try in years. LNG industry over Christmas, which is typically

Week 01 07•January•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P17