Russian Oil and Gas Industry: News #2

More detail about the Akademik Chersky posted in comments on ZH. Looks like the Russians are going for it.

The appearance of several auxiliary vessels was recorded near the Akademik Chersky pipelayer, which was called a possible completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, according to the MarineTraffic vessel tracking portal.

The "Akademik Chersky" itself is currently in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Kaliningrad region. On October 1, he left the German port of Mukran, where pipes for Nord Stream 2 are stored. Chersky's current status is limited maneuverability.

In September, the supply vessel "Ivan Sidorenko" arrived there, which is planned to be used to supply pipes during the completion of the gas pipeline. Yesterday it also maneuvered near Kaliningrad, and is currently at anchor in the port of Svetly.

At the same time, a Russian supply vessel “Umka” appeared near the “Chersky” itself, which is used to deliver pipes from the shore. The Russian multipurpose vessel Finval, which also left the port of Mukran, is also located in the immediate vicinity of the Chersky. Another supply vessel, the Baltic Researcher, also sails under the Russian flag and is close to the pipelayer with limited maneuverability.

It remains to lay the last 160 kilometers of the gas pipeline.

Now safely parked in Russian waters off Kaliningrad. Probably finished refresher course.l

The one thing I don't get is, why is Russia giving it's gas at cheap rates?

par far wrote:The one thing I don't get is, why is Russia giving it's gas at cheap rates?

It isn't, its selling it at market rates, maybe higher given the low current World pricing but that depends on the contract. How can you sell gas, or anything, for more than anyone will pay?

No point in leaving it in the ground, its all renewables in the future

It also needs to sell as much as it can as it needs the money.

JohninMK wrote:

par far wrote:The one thing I don't get is, why is Russia giving it's gas at cheap rates?

It isn't, its selling it at market rates, maybe higher given the low current World pricing but that depends on the contract. How can you sell gas, or anything, for more than anyone will pay?

No point in leaving it in the ground, its all renewables in the future    

It also needs to sell as much as it can as it needs the money.

Hopefully the prices go up soon.

par far wrote:

JohninMK wrote:

par far wrote:The one thing I don't get is, why is Russia giving it's gas at cheap rates?

It isn't, its selling it at market rates, maybe higher given the low current World pricing but that depends on the contract. How can you sell gas, or anything, for more than anyone will pay?

No point in leaving it in the ground, its all renewables in the future    

It also needs to sell as much as it can as it needs the money.

Hopefully the prices go up soon.

To infinity. The EU needs to be taught what Russia being a reliable supplier means. I think the Navalny hoax novichoke poisoning should be reason enough to embargo
the EU in terms of natural gas sales and the sale of other resources. Innocent Cuba has been subject to economic blackmail for decades, but Russia bends over backwards
to accommodate criminals who run the EU. Eat shit, scum.

The problem is that Russia has been way too slow on implementing the infrastructure changes to cut the EU off. Only now is it building the LNG plants to ship its gas
to the better markets of the far east. Better late than never, but still.

Putin should kill off Nord Stream II after what Deutschland pulled with Navalny. All the screeching and bleating in the EU about new sanctions on Russia over
Navalny should be dealt with harshly and mercilessly. EU c*nts need to learn how to behave.

The prices are low because they sign very long term contracts... which is understandable if you are building a pipeline you need to know the customer will still be interested in your product in 10 years time because pipelines are only efficient if you use them quite a bit.

From the customers perspective they are locked into buying the product, which would be a negative if the provider was a like the US who would use gas supplies as influence, but with Russia and the Soviet Union before hand the only problems they have ever had was when Ukraine was stealing gas sent to other customers down the line.

So cheap gas and the ability to pipe the gas immediately the cheque clears so to speak... once the money is in the accounts they flip a switch and the gas is immediately transmitted... no shipping no delays etc etc... what is not to like?

Apparently that is not good enough for Europe however.... US doesn't like it because they want to sell gas and cannot compete economically. Poland doesn't like it because gas comes via their pipes and they don't make any transit fees on gas coming through NSII or NSI for that matter.

As KVS says... the whole process is about getting cheap energy for Europe and they are biting and spitting on the hand that is trying to deliver that... I say start making outrageous demands and get the european countries to quit and then take ownership of the pipes built so far and complete them to Kaliningrad so they get the cheap gas that Germany might have had... they can convert the whole region into gas power...

To supply the EU market Russia can set up liquification plants in St Petersberg or Kaliningrad or both and ship it to Germany from those locations.... LNG costs more but that covers the cost of liquification and transport which the EU will then have to pay to get their energy... they can buy freedom gas but that will cost them even more...

By liquefying the gas themselves the Russians can send the energy to EU or US or UK or any other country on the planet.... they are no longer limited by the pipes either... where they reach and whose country they go through... countries on the way can't steal gas...

They can then offer to German companies that have heavy industry that uses a lot of energy to set up production in Russia where labour costs will be lower and energy costs also much lower... but stable.

Indeed, LNG makes gas a point to point commodity like oil. The LNG tankers can go to the highest bidder. With pipelines you are locked
in with basically one customer (the EU Borg Collective). The US ploy of displacing Russia with LNG is going to come to bite the EU and
the US in the rear.

LMFS wrote:

kvs wrote:Indeed, LNG makes gas a point to point commodity like oil.   The LNG tankers can go to the highest bidder.   With pipelines you are locked
in with basically one customer (the EU Borg Collective).    The US ploy of displacing Russia with LNG is going to come to bite the EU and
the US in the rear.  

Making LNG in the Arctic is probably a bit more efficient than in the Gulf of Mexico and Novatek is ramping up more and more projects with domestic technology... if they want a LNG war with Russia they can have it and lose it too.

Update about the state of NS2 and expected activities by the laying fleet:

https://www.stalkerzone.org/nord-stream-2-germany-finally-made-up-its-mind/

Russia is the only country on the planet that could actually deploy nuclear power to make LNG instead of the routine approach of burning some of
the gas for liquefaction. This sucks up a full 30% of the total volume of gas just to change its phase. Nuclear power is vastly cheaper if
done right and Russia does not spend $14 billion 1980s dollars to build a sub-sized plant like was the case of Darlington in Ontario, Canada.

BTW, Garry's idea of redirecting NS2 to Kaliningrad is not rare. A lot of people are calling for this in Russia. Instead of pumping cheap gas to Deutschland,
make LNG and ship it around the world.

Deploying LNG facilities to Kalningrad would also make it a more painful target for NATzO greater west dreamers who openly yap about how NATzO is going
to grab Kaliningrad.

With all this crap about tearing down soviet statues... I was thinking there are probably a lot of culturally important buildings in Kaliningrad that are not earthquake safe and will have to be taken down and replaced with nice solid Soviet architecture... Change some names to make them more Russian...

Not actually do it, but listen to them squeal at the suggestion... but they are only buildings and statues and history... why are you so obsessed?  

flamming_python wrote:

kvs wrote:BTW, Garry's idea of redirecting NS2 to Kaliningrad is not rare.   A lot of people are calling for this in Russia.   Instead of pumping cheap gas to Deutschland,
make LNG and ship it around the world.

Deploying LNG facilities to Kalningrad would also make it a more painful target for NATzO greater west dreamers who openly yap about how NATzO is going
to grab Kaliningrad.  

Kaliningrad already has LNG facilities.

At any rate, a facility for deliquifying LNG back into natural gas

It was put into service over the last year or two and is supposed to serve as a backup in case the pipeline connections through NATO get severed.

But IMO it was a waste of money, to build a facility and maintain it just for such an eventuality. Would have made a lot more sense to just build a branch from Nord Stream to Kaliningrad en-route.

I am talking about liquefaction and not offloading. I think this facility you call a waste of money is a "pervaya lastochka" which will eventually grow into
an export terminal.

Kaliningrad already has LNG facilities.

At any rate, a facility for deliquifying LNG back into natural gas

It was put into service over the last year or two and is supposed to serve as a backup in case the pipeline connections through NATO get severed.

So what you are saying is that they have the facilities to receive LNG on ships that they could use in their gas system in case their neighbours decide to cut them off so essentially the gas they get comes through Poland and the Ukraine or Latvia so those countries will get transit fees for delivering gas to Kaliningrad and could turn off the taps if so inclined.

But IMO it was a waste of money, to build a facility and maintain it just for such an eventuality. Would have made a lot more sense to just build a branch from Nord Stream to Kaliningrad en-route.

Clearly sensible and eventually likely necessary thing to do in my opinion... Ukraine has proven untrustworthy in the past and could do so again in the future, and I wouldn't trust Poland or Latvia much either... Having the capacity to receive LNG via ship is very sensible, but we don't know if this is able to receive or receive and send... if they get excess gas could they transfer the extra to ships to be sold on the international market.

I would probably agree with owais.usmani and say building liquification terminals in Kaliningrad would probably be a waste of space... if they already have the capacity to receive LNG tankers and distribute that gas into their network without having to pay any transit fees then an unfinished pipeline off their coast could be redirected to their port which would totally bypass Polish and Latvian and Ukrainian interference.

It would not make sense to pump gas all the way to Kaliningrad to then liquify it to put it onto tankers... it would be easier to do that in St Petersberg, or further north where it could go via tankers over the north sea route to Asia or Africa much quicker and easier.

Pumping gas direct to Kaliningrad would eliminate the volume needed to be pumped through Poland and Ukraine so it would save money in transit fees and if Germany needs more gas capacity they can buy it shipped from St Petersberg... that would only add days to delivery... compared with hours for piped gas.

Lots of interesting stuff in this long article

By Olga Samofalova, translated from the Russian*

Russia has a strong competitor in the south of Europe in the form of Azerbaijani pipeline gas. It will flow through the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) directly to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy in November. Azerbaijani gas has already caused Gazprom a lot of trouble in the Turkish market. What damage will it do to Russian gas in the southern European market?

Construction of the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (TAP) has been completed. This pipeline is already filled with Azerbaijani gas. There are still technical formalities, but in November the first pipeline gas from Azerbaijan will flow to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy. The pipe runs from the Greek-Turkish border to the receiving terminal in southern Italy. Just the three European countries have contracted 10 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan.



http://johnhelmer.org/gas-pains-for-gazprom-azerbaijan-attacks-russia-in-bulgaria-greece-italy/#more-45148

If Russia was the US then they would make a huge deal about the Azeri invasion and bomb the shit out of all their oil and gas facilities and pipelines... I believe it is called killing two birds with one stone.

But Russia is not the US...

Plus they don't produce enough for all said markets anyway.

If it was a problem for Turkish market for Russia, then turkey wouldn't have vested so much interest in turkstream.

JohninMK wrote:Lots of interesting stuff in this long article

By Olga Samofalova, translated from the Russian*

Russia has a strong competitor in the south of Europe in the form of Azerbaijani pipeline gas. It will flow through the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) directly to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy in November. Azerbaijani gas has already caused Gazprom a lot of trouble in the Turkish market. What damage will it do to Russian gas in the southern European market?

Construction of the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (TAP) has been completed. This pipeline is already filled with Azerbaijani gas. There are still technical formalities, but in November the first pipeline gas from Azerbaijan will flow to Greece, Bulgaria and Italy. The pipe runs from the Greek-Turkish border to the receiving terminal in southern Italy. Just the three European countries have contracted 10 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan.



http://johnhelmer.org/gas-pains-for-gazprom-azerbaijan-attacks-russia-in-bulgaria-greece-italy/#more-45148

This alternative gas pipeline project is now approaching 30 years of pipe dreaming. It was all the rage during the 2000s.
But it never happened because the alleged vast pool of natural gas in the Caspian basin does not exist. Turkmenistan
was supposed to be the prime supplier but its reserves were grossly overestimated and it ended up exporting all it could
to China. For some reason we have Azerbaijan replacing Turkmenistan in this project as if that makes any sense.

https://www.worldometers.info/gas/turkmenistan-natural-gas/
https://www.worldometers.info/gas/azerbaijan-natural-gas/

Azerbaijan has about 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves compared to 265 trillion cubic feet
for Turkmenistan. So we see what a load of BS this project is. The first was a failure, the second is a farce.

By the way, can the Russian turk stream (the evolution of the south stream) be connected with the TAP (Trans Adria Pipeline) and so bring russian natural gas to italy?

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:By the way, can the Russian turk stream (the evolution of the south stream) be connected with the TAP (Trans Adria Pipeline) and so bring russian natural gas to italy?

There are no physical limitations, only political ones. South Stream was supposed to go through Bulgaria but the comprador maggots in charge
slice off their own testicles to spite Russia and lick Uncle Swine-shit's anus. Now Turk Stream is going to go through Greece I believe and then north-west
which is parallel to the Adriatic Sea. It can definitely branch to Italy. Anyway, Turk Stream is supposed to service southern Europe.

kvs wrote:

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:By the way, can the Russian turk stream (the evolution of the south stream) be connected with the TAP (Trans Adria Pipeline) and so bring russian natural gas to italy?

There are no physical limitations, only political ones.   South Stream was supposed to go through Bulgaria but the comprador maggots in charge
slice off their own testicles to spite Russia and lick Uncle Swine-shit's anus.    Now Turk Stream is going to go through Greece I believe and then north-west
which is parallel to the Adriatic Sea.   It can definitely branch to Italy.   Anyway, Turk Stream is supposed to service southern Europe.

Not my interpretation. Turkstream comes ashore well to the west of Istanbul and is intended to link up with the pipeline going up into Bulgaria.

Whether it can reverse flow south to allow Russian gas into TAP I don't know. I assume the owners of the TAP pipe would not agree to that given their links to the source of the gas.

JohninMK wrote:

kvs wrote:

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:By the way, can the Russian turk stream (the evolution of the south stream) be connected with the TAP (Trans Adria Pipeline) and so bring russian natural gas to italy?

There are no physical limitations, only political ones.   South Stream was supposed to go through Bulgaria but the comprador maggots in charge
slice off their own testicles to spite Russia and lick Uncle Swine-shit's anus.    Now Turk Stream is going to go through Greece I believe and then north-west
which is parallel to the Adriatic Sea.   It can definitely branch to Italy.   Anyway, Turk Stream is supposed to service southern Europe.

Not my interpretation. Turkstream comes ashore well to the west of Istanbul and is intended to link up with the pipeline going up into Bulgaria.

Whether it can reverse flow south to allow Russian gas into TAP I don't know. I assume the owners of the TAP pipe would not agree to that given their links to the source of the gas.

Well, it's up to Turkey to decide where to send it. Not Russia. If Turkey does not want to link to TAP, then that's that.

It's nice for Russia not to be involved deeply with such issues. Nord Stream I and II are also supposed disentangle Russia from EU-tardia's
internal issues.

Interesting all the shit about multiple suppliers of gas needing access to Russian pipes taking gas to Europe which means they run at 50% efficiency to allow a competitor to pump their gas through, but with Azeri gas from Turkey there is no such demand... sounds fair...

In fact that would be the ideal solution for a shared Russian Azeri pipeline to Europe which prevents a monopoly and ticks all the boxes as far as genuine European fears of monopoly are concerned...