Russian Oil and Gas Industry: News #3

The United States is set to import more Russian oil this month and next, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, as American supply of medium sour crudes is tight with 77 percent of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil production still offline ten days after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana.

There is increased interest from refiners for Russian crude, especially the medium sour Urals grade, which is similar to the U.S. Mars blend whose production is still offline, according to Bloomberg’s sources.

The tighter supply of U.S. medium sour crudes in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida has pushed the price of Russia’s Urals up to a discount of just $1.05 per barrel to Dated Brent—the highest price for Urals in seven months—compared to a Urals discount to Brent of $1.95 a barrel before Ida, Bloomberg estimates show.

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) data as of Wednesday showed that 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), or 76.88 percent of U.S. Gulf of Mexico production, was still offline.

As of Wednesday evening, September 8, damage assessment of the West Delta-143 facility continued, said Shell. The supermajor has begun the process of redeploying personnel to its Appomattox platform and continues to redeploy personnel to the Enchilada/Salsa and Auger assets.

However, Appomattox, Mars, Olympus, Ursa, Auger, and Enchilada/Salsa remain shut in, and around 80 percent of Shell-operated production is currently offline, the company said.

The U.S. was already importing record volumes of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia in June 2021, according to the latest available data from the EIA. June imports of Russian crude and oil products hit a record 848,000 barrels per day (bpd), beating the record of 844,000 bpd set in the previous month.

Last year, U.S. refiners turned to Russian oil and petroleum products to fill the gap that sanctioned Venezuelan crude and drastically reduced OPEC shipments have left in U.S. imports. Russia mostly displaced the market previously held by Venezuela—now unable to sell its heavy oil to U.S. refiners because of the American sanctions on Nicolas Maduro’s regime.

Gazprom Neft has completed construction of a new production well at the Prirazlomnoye field in the Barents Sea. Directional Drilling Difficulty Index (DDI *) was 7.05 - this indicator is one of the highest in Russia and allows the new object to be classified as super difficult. The length of the well exceeded 6.6 km, which became a new record for the company's offshore fields.

The construction process was remotely supported online by specialists from the Geonavigator Drilling Support Center located in St. Petersburg. The accuracy of wells placement along the optimal trajectory ensures the use of predictive analytics methods. To further improve the drilling processes, Gazprom Neft is gradually introducing technologies based on the use of neural networks and machine learning systems.

The well stock of Prirazlomnoye already has 23 objects, the length of which increases as the field is developed and areas that are more and more remote from the production platform are involved in development. By the end of 2021, the project operator, Gazprom Neft Shelf, plans to build another well, which will make it possible to increase production rates. In 2020, Prirazlomnoye produced 3.27 million tons of oil, and in total during the industrial operation of the field, more than 15 million tons were shipped to consumers.

“The new well sets another record for the length at the Prirazlomnoye field. Despite the growing complexity of drilling, we continue to systematically increase the well stock. At the same time, the parameters of the new facility are still far from our technological limit. The experience and competencies of our specialists allow us to build offshore wells up to 9 km long. "

Moscow. September 3rd. INTERFAX.RU - The fourth line of the Yamal LNG plant, which was built according to NOVATEK's own technology - the Arctic Cascade - and was launched in May 2021, is working, but poorly, the head of NOVATEK Leonid Mikhelson told reporters.

"It works poorly. It's not about the technology itself, all the equipment is completely made in Russia. Such equipment that Russian companies have not yet produced. Both the turbo expanders and the compressor group are completely new. It must be admitted that our manufacturers and factories still have to learn and learn to make good products. We have claims against almost all suppliers of equipment for the fourth line. It works, but it is bad. There are periodic stops, but less and less, "he said.

Mikhelson added that the company will have claims against equipment suppliers, including financial ones.

Among the main suppliers of equipment for the 4th line, he mentioned Kazankompressormash, Rosatom, Cryogenmash.

Earlier, Kommersant sources said that NOVATEK could abandon plans to build the Obskoye LNG in Sabetta (4.8-5 million tons) based on Russian equipment using the Arctic Cascade technology. The company initiated the termination of the contract with Kazankompressormash (HMS Group) and Siemens, concluded in the summer of 2020, for the supply of compressors and gas turbine units to Siemens as drives for gas compressor units worth about 130 million euros.

Now NOVATEK has converted the Obsk LNG into the Obsk Gas Chemical Complex.

The fourth line of the Yamal LNG plant with a capacity of 0.9 million tonnes per year was put into operation in early June and produced 38,000 tonnes of LNG by the end of June. The company planned to reach full capacity in the fall.

Yamal LNG is a joint venture between NOVATEK (50.1%), French Total (20%) and Chinese CNPC (20%) and SRF (9.9%).

kvs wrote:No country boot straps technology without any problems.   There is always a refinement iteration.   These
problems will be fixed and it is interesting to see admission of their existence.   In the precious west we
have myths of infallible technological superiority.  

But I am sure that the 5th column in Russia will run with this information to claim that Russia = fail.  

GarryB wrote:The proof of dependence on foreign technology is proven false.
With any new systems there will be problems and issues and as it admits it is getting more reliable and useful and effective.
Over time it will get to the level of the material from foreign companies that it replaced and they can start exporting their equipment to undercut the material they were using before.
They will have a lot of other projects that can use this Russian technology going forward when it is reliable, which further cuts out foreign companies.

FRANKFURT, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Germany's energy regulator on Monday said it had four months to complete a certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after receiving all necessary documents for an application for an operating license from the pipeline company.

You need know-how. Each and any wise ruler opens his country for foreign specialists.
This is what Peter the Great did, this is what Catherine the Great did.

owais.usmani wrote:https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-has-four-months-certify-nord-stream-2-pipeline-2021-09-13/

FRANKFURT, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Germany's energy regulator on Monday said it had four months to complete a certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after receiving all necessary documents for an application for an operating license from the pipeline company.

Hole wrote:One of the reasons is the EU failed to buy gas in Asia (Qatar?).  Where is the american freedom gas?

ALAMO wrote:Perfectly safe, where it used to be - at St. Petersburg burse

BRUSSELS, Sept 17 (Reuters) - A group of European Parliament lawmakers has asked the European Commission to investigate Gazprom's role in soaring European gas prices, saying the company's behavior had made them suspect market manipulation.

Russia's Energy Ministry is due to prepare a report in the coming days about the possibility of Rosneft exporting natural gas to Europe via the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Interfax cited Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as saying on Wednesday.

Currently, Kremlin-controlled Gazprom has exclusive rights for Russian pipeline gas exports.

Novak said this month that Rosneft had asked the government for permission to export natural gas and the government was reviewing the request.

The Energy Ministry and Rosneft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Oil-focused Rosneft and its shareholder, BP, have long sought to export natural gas to Europe as exports are more lucrative than domestic sales.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin is a powerful ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia announced last week that it had completed construction of the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 to Germany, doubling its gas exporting capacity via the Baltic Sea.

Germany's energy regulator said on Monday it had four months to complete operating certification for the new pipeline.