Page 102 - RusRPTMar19

January–June, Russia’s output of liquid hydrocarbons will fall by 230,000 barrels per day compared to the level of October 2018, it said. In January, Russia’s liquid hydrocarbon production fell by 50,000 barrels per day compared to October 2018 and by 90,000 barrels per compared to December 2018 to 11.56mn barrels per day, OPEC said. OPEC said it fulfilled the OPEC+ oil production cut agreement by 86% in January, having reduced its oil production by 797,000 barrels per day to 30.81mn barrels per day, mainly due to lower output in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Angola. The organization lowered its estimate of growth of oil demand in 2018 by 0.03mn barrels per day and reduced its 2019 forecast by 0.05mn barrels per day. According to OPEC, oil demand grew by 1.47mn barrels per day to 98.76mn barrels per day in 2018 and is expected to increase by 1.24mn barrels per day to 100mn barrels per day in 2019.
Russian oil companies mull a pipeline to connect the Vankor oil fields to the newly opened Artic Northern shipping route. Rosneft and Neftegazholding might participate in the project to construct a crude oil pipeline from the Russian oil field Vankor cluster to North Bay at Taymyr through the Payakha group of Russian oil companies Rosneft and Neftegazholding might participate in the project to construct a crude oil pipeline from the Russian oil field Vankor cluster to North Bay at Taymyr through the Payakha group of fields, Kommersant reported on February 27. According to the paper, Neftegazholding and Rosatom have asked Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov to consider such the pipeline infrastructure construction project in order to load the Northern Sea Artic shipping route that goes around the top of Russia from Europe to Asia that the Kremlin is developing. Global warming is a boon for Russia and the route is now open an extra month a year due to the receding icecaps. Route would take crude oil shipments from the Vankor and Payakha fields to markets around the world. The pipeline might be as much as 600km long, with nameplate capacity of 25mmt of crude oil per annum and a potential expansion to 50mmt/a. The pipeline might be constructed by 2024, the paper writes.
Russian gas giant Gazprom is mulling building a second Turk Stream pipeline that will further increase the transit capacity that by passes Ukraine, the company said on February 14. The so-called Turk Stream 2 is only an idea now and would be subject to potential demand for gas and getting all approvals. It would also add significantly to the company’s future capex at a time when investment into expensive pipelines was supposed to start winding down following the completion of the Turk Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Turkey, the Power of Siberia pipeline from Russia to China and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany – all due for completion starting at the end of this year. Gazprom approved increasing the investment program for 2018 by 17% to record-high RUB1.5 trillion ($22bn) in September. Gazprom might construct a Turk Stream 2 gas pipeline if there is sufficient demand and the company receives all the necessary approvals, Kommersant reports, citing Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller.
The share of Russian pipeline gas in the E.U. gas imports grew by 3 percentage points on the year to 47% in July–September 2018, the European Commission said in a quarterly gas market report released January 29.
102 RUSSIA Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com