Russian Oil and Gas Industry: News #2

You have to ask yourself, what is it about these regions that makes them valuable to Russia... sure a lot of ship building infrastructure in the Ukraine was valuable, but that was in 1990... not now. These people have been poisoned against Russia, which is something Russia needs to accept and understand and move on.

Karl Haushofer wrote:

GarryB wrote:

You have to ask yourself, what is it about these regions that makes them valuable to Russia... sure a lot of ship building infrastructure in the Ukraine was valuable, but that was in 1990... not now. These people have been poisoned against Russia, which is something Russia needs to accept and understand and move on.

Losing the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus was a huge geopolitical defeat for Russia, and left the Russia proper more prone to military attack. The NATO can place its missiles in Baltic states and Ukraine which would be really bad for Russian security.

Losing Baltic states also considerably cut Russia's access to sea, as well as cut Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia.

Thankfully Russia got back Crimea, but it was just a small consolation price compared to what Russia lost.

GarryB wrote:
Will be funny when they build that canal that goes from Murmansk to St Petersberg to bypass having to go around Norway for the North Sea Route... St Petersberg is probably going to get rather busy... while those baltic ports will be quiet... but they will be free...

Russia Halts Oil Supply To Key European Transit Hub

Russia has halted oil supplies to Belarus amid a disagreement over tariffs, according to officials at a Belarusian oil refinery in the northern city of Navapolatsak.

The officials told RFE/RL that the shipments stopped on January 1 and the facility is currently processing only Russian oil delivered before that date.

Belarus has been at odds with Russia over oil-transit prices for some time against a backdrop of increasing pressure by Moscow on Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to deepen integration between the two countries.

A two-month deal on natural-gas prices hours before a December 31 deadline helped the sides avoid a gas shutoff to start the year.

Belarus is heavily reliant on Russia for fuel and funding and is a key transit route for Russian energy supplies to Europe. And now, Russia has just broken a new oil production record.

Moscow and Minsk signed an agreement in 1999 to form a unified state, but little progress has been made in the ensuing two decades.

Meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenka last year failed to bring the two sides together as the Belarusian president complained he was merely seeking "equal" terms.

Belarusian protests in December targeted the perceived secrecy of the talks and objected to closer ties to Russia.

Mike Pompeo this week postponed a planned visit to Minsk to meet with Lukashenka in what would have been the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to that post-Soviet country in a quarter century.

JohninMK wrote:Today Tass (or Tacc) gave a big update on Nord Stream-2.

Number one, Academic Cherskiy will remain in the Far East, because it is essential in completion of far more important projects than Nord Stream. Pipes from Sakhalin (and through Amur river? I am not sure on that) together have to deliver 80 [huge units] per year, and they will be laid by Tschersky (Nord Stream 2 has capacity 55 HU)

Number two. Danes softened their requirements. Concerning the specs for a pipe laying vessel, they can be satisfied by Fortuna that is finishing some bits in the German sector. Danes added requirement that the sea has to be sufficiently calm during the work, seems like weather when swimming is forbidden on Baltic beaches, but on summer usually it is permitted. So Fortuna will finish the job on the Baltic.

A bit weird how Danes oscillate between obstructing and just harrassing. Both USA and Germany seem to have influence.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 8 2020 14:55 utc | 55

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/irans-missile-launch-against-two-us-bases-in-iraq-calls-trumps-bluff.html#more

JohninMK wrote:Today Tass (or Tacc) gave a big update on Nord Stream-2.

Number one, Academic Cherskiy will remain in the Far East, because it is essential in completion of far more important projects than Nord Stream. Pipes from Sakhalin (and through Amur river? I am not sure on that) together have to deliver 80 [huge units] per year, and they will be laid by Tschersky (Nord Stream 2 has capacity 55 HU)

Number two. Danes softened their requirements. Concerning the specs for a pipe laying vessel, they can be satisfied by Fortuna that is finishing some bits in the German sector. Danes added requirement that the sea has to be sufficiently calm during the work, seems like weather when swimming is forbidden on Baltic beaches, but on summer usually it is permitted. So Fortuna will finish the job on the Baltic.

A bit weird how Danes oscillate between obstructing and just harrassing. Both USA and Germany seem to have influence.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 8 2020 14:55 utc | 55

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/irans-missile-launch-against-two-us-bases-in-iraq-calls-trumps-bluff.html#more

Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan Launch TurkStream Gas Pipeline

The Presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively, officially launched on Wednesday the TurkStream natural gas pipeline designed to ship Russian gas to Turkey and markets in southeastern Europe.

Through TurkStream, Russia’s gas giant Gazprom will carry pipeline gas to Turkey and south and southeastern Europe—a region already heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies.

TurkStream consists of two lines—one to carry gas for the Turkish market, and another to ship the gas further westward on to Bulgaria, Serbia, and potentially Italy and Hungary.

The official launch of the pipeline in Istanbul was also attended by the prime ministers of Bulgaria and Serbia, Boyko Borissov and Aleksandar Vucic, respectively, as well as by Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Gazprom’s management committee chairman Alexey Miller.

“It is important for Bulgaria to receive gas from different sources at competitive prices,” Borissov said on Twitter after the ceremony.

Bulgaria started receiving gas via Turkstream on January 1, while Serbia and North Macedonia began receiving the Russian gas on January 5.

TurkStream extends Russia’s dominance in gas supplies to Turkey and southeastern Europe and bypasses Ukraine, with which Russia has strained relations since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.  

Russia and Ukraine reached a deal on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe in the eleventh hour, preventing a potential gas supply crisis during the winter in Europe.

Commenting on the launch of TurkStream, Gazprom’s Miller said in a statement:

“Firstly, taking into account exports via Blue Stream, we have paved the way for direct transit-free supplies to fully meet Turkey's needs for Gazprom's gas. Secondly, Europe now has a new and reliable route to receive Russian pipeline gas.”

“There is no doubt that, thanks to all of this, our cooperation with our Turkish and European partners is shifting to a new level and is going to help improve energy security in the region,” Miller added.

Critics of Russia’s energy policy, including the U.S., the Baltic states, Poland, and several other EU countries, say that it is Moscow’s gas supply dominance that undermines Europe’s energy security.

Novatek adds several trillion cubic meters to its Arctic reserves

The remote Yamal and Gydan peninsulas are getting increasingly important for Russia’s energy sector as several huge fields are added to the project portfolio of the country’s biggest oil and gas companies.

The tundra lands located along the northern parts of the Kara Sea hold what appears as an endless pool of natural gas.

This is now the top priority region of Novatek, the company that is owned and managed by Russia’s richest man, Leonid Mikhelson. The powerful natural gas baron and his company has over several years invested huge sums in regional fields and in late 2017 opened its Yamal LNG project.

That, however, was only the first joint in what ultimately will be a chain of new Arctic installations and plants.

New big fields
In the course of 2019, Novatek won several new licenses to fields in the area. The latest of the acquisitions is the Bukharinskoye, a field located partly on land, partly offshore, in the Gydan Peninsula and adjacent Gulf of Ob.

Regional subsidiary company Arctic LNG 1 on the 27th of December won the right to exploit the huge Arctic natural gas field that holds an estimated 1,19 trillion cubic meter of gas and 74 million tons of liquid hydrocarbons.

The resources of the new license area allow us to boost reserves and pave the way for more LNG projects, similar to the Arctic LNG 2, Novatek says.

Leonid Mikhelson and his company in late 2017 launched its Yamal LNG project and intends to start production at the Arctic LNG 2 in 2022. The latter will ultimately produce 19,8 million tons of liquified natural gas per year. That comes in addition to the more than 17 million tons annually produced in the Yamal LNG.

The Bukharinskoye follows the acquisition of the Vostochno-Ladertoyskoye field in mid-December. The fields holds an estimated 184 billion cubic meters of reserves.

The biggest acquisition of the year was the Soletsko-Khanaveyskoye field that holds as much as 2,18 trillion cubic meters of gas.

In May, another three license areas were obtained in the northern part of the Krasoyarsk region, an area located east of the Gydan Peninsula.

Vast reserves
All together, Novatek’s license acquisitions in the region in 2019 most likely amounted to more than 4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. That is about 8 times the total annual consumption of the European Union.

The EU in 2018 consumed 458,5 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 155 billion was imported from Russia.

Novatek now has more that 55 field licenses in the far northern Yamal-Nenets region, many of them situated near the Gulf of Ob and the Yenisey River.

A key part of the natural gas produced in Yamal and Gydan are aimed at the EU market. Novatek is exporting a big part of its Yamal LNG to EU countries and Gazprom has built new powerful pipelines, among them the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta and the Nord Stream, are linked with Europe.

That comes in addition to the regional reserves possessed by Gazprom. The state natural gas company has a license portfolio in the Yamal Peninsula that totals 32 field licenses with resources exceeding 26 trillion cubic meters. The biggest of the company’s regional fields, the Bovanenkovo, holds about 4,9 trillion, and is now operated at full capacity.

flamming_python wrote:

kvs wrote:Germany must be squeezing Denmark's balls for it to not use the pretexts available to it to sabotage Nord Stream II. The EU is schizophrenic
this way since after WWII it became a protectorate of the USA but has the history and population to be a superpower by itself and not
goosestepping to Washington's music.

Would that be a good thing though?

Historically a Europe that's united under one roof (through force typically) sets its sights straight on Russia

US pressure on Nord Stream II has given Europe an argument to force Russia to accept unfavourable terms over gas transit in the Ukraine.

Russia thinks its throwing Germany a bone, wants to entice it. In reality, Germany and the US both support the anti-Russian regime in the Ukraine (and want Russia to fund it), and for all Russia knows could have co-operated over this latest sanction threat in secret.

flamming_python wrote:

Hole wrote:The deal with the comedian in Kiev was Always necessary, even if Nord Stream II and III would have been ready last year. The pipelines in Banderistan are needed to supply customers in Hungary, Austria and some other central and south-eastern european states. In four to Five years all pipelines coming from TurkStream and Nord Stream will be ready to supply all customers in Europe, then the morons in Kiev are done.

By that time even those morons would have found a way to manage

And I don't want Russian money to be lost on giving them discounts in the interim. We'll be funding all their little Ukrainization and discrimination campaigns for the next 4-5 years.

This is a retreat from Russian interests, appeasment.