Russian fossil energy (Oil and Gas and Coal) Industry: News #4

The claim that "Europe" imported 200 bcm/y is kind of overblown since when they say "Europe" they included Turkey as part of "Europe".
Turkey has pipelines of 16 bcm and 32 bcm direct to Russia (Blue Stream and Turk Stream) underwater in the Black Sea. That is basically 48 bcm.
Of this 48 bcm, most of it goes to Turkey, a small portion goes to Hungary and Serbia via Bulgaria. And they have not stopped buying.

Power of Siberia has 61 bcm capacity of which 38 bcm is expected to go to China. Rest is supposed to be used for clients in Russia. But if they increase pressure on the pipeline it will carry a bit more. Then there is the pipeline extension from Sakhalin to China. Another 10 bcm sales to China at least have been signed to supply that gas, and Power of Siberia 2, which is supposed to be 50 bcm, go to China via Mongolia, and use Yamal gas, is to be signed.

The remainder of the Yamal gas will likely be liquefied into LNG and sold via boat. For this the Arctic LNG 2 facilities of Novatek need to be built.

Building the infrastructure is not just a matter of Russia building a pipe to China, the Chinese also have to convert energy generation facilities from coal to gas, and build pipelines inside China. This is being done, but is not immediate.

The gas was never the major issue to begin with. Most of Russia's profits have been in sales of petroleum and petroleum distillates. The fall in oil price is way more problematic than loss of gas sales.

US considered explosions at Nord Stream back in 2021, Hersh said, 03.24.2023.

Hersh: US contacted perpetrators of Nord Stream explosions back in 2021.

MOSCOW, March 24 - RIA Novosti. The United States considered the possibility of explosions at Nord Stream at the end of 2021, already at that time, Presidential Security Adviser Jake Sullivan contacted the perpetrators, American journalist Seymour Hersh said in an interview with the Chinese newspaper China Daily.

“I think the people who were originally asked to do the job were asked in 2021 before Christmas by President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The idea was in one of the options to blow up the pipeline,” he said.

In September 2022, there were explosions on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, through which Russian gas flowed to Europe . Germany , Denmark and Sweden did not rule out targeted sabotage. These countries are conducting investigations, but they have not yet come to any results. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the emergency an obvious terrorist attack.

According to Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh, the sabotage was staged by the United States with the help of NATO allies : in the summer, during the Baltops exercises, American divers mined gas pipelines, and three months later, the Norwegians detonated explosive devices.

In early March, The New York Times reported on the availability of intelligence data, according to which a certain pro-Ukrainian group was behind the attack on Nord Stream, whose plans were not necessarily known to the Kyiv leadership. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov called such publications a coordinated stuffing in the media aimed at diverting attention.

https://ria.ru/20230324/potoki-1860393941.html

Seymour Hersh makes new Nord Stream sabotage claim, 03.24.2023.

The Pulitzer Prize winner has alleged the US blew up the pipelines because it was unhappy with a lack of German support for Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines because he was unhappy with the level of support provided by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.

Hersh first accused Washington of destroying the key European energy route in an article released in February, and made more allegations in an interview with the China Daily newspaper published on Friday.

“The [US] president was afraid of Chancellor Scholz not wanting to put more guns and more arms [forward for Kiev]. That’s all. I don’t know whether that it was anger or punishment, but the net effect is that it cut off a major power source through Western Europe,” Hersh claimed.  

Despite attempts by the US to deny its involvement in the Nord Stream attack, “Europe is in crisis now” and Biden will receive “a lot of criticism for what he did” in the coming months, the journalist argued.

The Pulitzer Prize winner alleged that “the people that were initially asked to do the job” of destroying the pipelines were contacted by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan towards the end of 2021. 

The initial purpose of mining Nord Stream 1 and 2, built to deliver Russian gas to Europe through Germany, was “to give the [US] president an option to say to [Russian] President Putin, ‘If you go to war [in Ukraine], we’re going to destroy the pipelines,’” Hersh claimed. 

Biden himself publicly confirmed that stance but “unfortunately, those people in the Western press seemed to have forgotten,” the journalist stated.

Just under three weeks before the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Biden warned during a press conference on February 7 that “if Russia invades... there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

According to Hersh, the US leader decided to order the detonation of mines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea last September because the conflict “wasn’t going great in Ukraine” from a US perspective. There was “at best a stalemate” during that period, in what Hersh described as “the American war that President Biden was so eager to support.”

https://www.rt.com/news/573530-biden-scholz-hersh-germany/

The whole concept that the rest of the world would live without oil to satisfy the EU was always idiocy.
There is next to no slack capacity in oil production.

They split the market into those who do not want to buy Russian oil, who pay more for this privilege, and those who buy Russian oil who get lower prices.
Russia also cut oil production at the same time everyone is getting out of COVID-19 lockdowns. So the price should bounce back up eventually this year.

Try to infiltrate more the US intelligence services through sharp and friendly Seymour Hersh.

Hersh commented on the decision of the UN Security Council on Nord Stream, 03.27.2023.

Hersh said he was not surprised by the decision of the UN Security Council on the resolution to undermine the Nord Stream.

WASHINGTON, March 28 - RIA Novosti. The refusal of the UN Security Council to adopt a Russian resolution calling for the creation of an international commission to investigate the terrorist act is not surprising, Seymour Hersh, the author of the investigation into the sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines, said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Earlier, the UN Security Council did not adopt the Russian draft resolution on the establishment of an international commission to investigate the incident. The document did not get the required number of votes due to the position of Western countries. Russia , China and Brazil voted in favor, the rest of the countries abstained.

"Of course. Why do they need it? What else did you expect from them? If it were otherwise, it would be news. <...> It turned out interesting with Brazil," Hersh emphasized in response to a request to comment on the results of the vote.

https://ria.ru/20230328/khersh-1861099114.html

Not too surprising given that Brazil's oil facilities are in deep waters and would be just as vulnerable to sabotage. It is not in Brazil's interest to see these sorts of activities spread around.

A Russian/Chinese joint reaction at the UN would be to make the utmost possible to oust its HQ out of New York and the US, where extreme pressure on delegations by Beltway is further facilitated.

Russian diesel pushed Western sanctions to a record, 03.28.2023.

The European Union has banned itself from buying Russian diesel fuel, but Europeans cannot afford to ban Russia from selling it. Exports of diesel from Russia in March promises to reach a record level, although sanctions are already in place. How did Moscow manage not to lose anything again because of the sanctions?

Deliveries of diesel fuel from Russia for the first 19 days of March amounted to about 1.5 million barrels per day, according to Vortexa data compiled by Bloomberg. If this figure continues, then this month will see the highest exports since the beginning of 2016. That is, the export of diesel fuel from Russia in March promises to reach a record level, despite the sanctions of the European Union, which deprived the country of its largest sales market.

How can one explain the fact that oil refining in Russia, not only has not fallen, but may become a record in March? Although the EU has stopped buying Russian oil products since the beginning of February due to the embargo that came into effect. How does Russia manage to break the record?

Firstly, Russia found other buyers for its diesel engine in exchange for the Europeans. Customers are attracted by the high quality and lower price of Russian goods. Most of the diesel fuel exported from Russia is sent to Turkey, Morocco, Brazil, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg notes.

“The record was also driven by increased supplies to China and a high discount on Russian oil products,” adds Vladimir Chernov, an analyst at Freedom Finance Global.

Thirdly, most likely, partly Europe continues to purchase Russian energy resources under gray schemes through third countries, notes Andrey Maslov, an analyst at FG Finam. And Bulgaria generally received a reprieve from the embargo, therefore, through it and through Slovenia, Russian resources enter the EU.

Previously, Russia supplied Northwest Europe with 53% of diesel fuel from its total imports. In February 2023, the Russian share officially fell to 2%. Now European countries officially buy diesel fuel from Saudi Arabia, India, China and South Korea, as evidenced by the growth statistics of imports from these countries. This became possible due to the growth of diesel supplies from Russia to these countries.

Fourthly, the stipulation in the EU document helps that when mixed, oil products (like oil) cease to be “Russian” and, therefore, do not fall under the embargo, Maslov reminds.

Finally, the amount of Russian diesel fuel in floating storage facilities has increased significantly. What does it say?

On the one hand, stocks in storage always grow in times of low demand for raw materials, and on the other hand, oilmen can stock up because they do not want to sell raw materials at such a high discount, Chernov believes.

From April, new severance tax rules come into force with reference to the cost of oil and limiting its discount. This should reduce discounts for Russian oil products on the world market.

Andrei Maslov does not rule out that the increased stocks of diesel in floating storage facilities may be intended not for storage, but for sale. “As a “storage” you can use a tanker standing in neutral waters, which is very popular in African countries. Therefore, most likely, we are talking about tankers standing outside the roadsteads, where oil is brought from several sources, then it is mixed and redistributed to other vessels, which helps to bypass restrictions. This is also indicated by the fact that the transshipment of Russian oil and oil products from tanker to tanker (Ship-to-Ship – STS) in February 2023 increased by 21% compared to the previous month,” explains Maslov.

Will the trend continue or is it worth waiting for a fall in oil refining since April? Since April, the discount for Russian diesel is expected to decrease, which means that new buyers may begin to buy Russian goods less actively. However, Russian diesel fuel will still cost less than competitors' products.

“There are obviously buyers and tankers, but the delivery time for oil products to Asian markets has increased by about three times compared to European markets. Therefore, a decrease in oil refining volumes may well follow, especially if we recall the voluntary reduction in oil production levels in the Russian Federation by 500,000 barrels per day,” says Chernov.

Gray schemes are hard to track, so making predictions is not easy. “Nevertheless, it can be expected that as long as the EU continues to buy Russian energy resources, Russian oil refining will remain afloat,” Maslov said.

And yet, so far, experts are determined that the embargo will not go unnoticed for Russian oil refining, although now nothing indicates this. “Markets expect that processing will decrease by another 500-1000 thousand tons, which is largely included in the base scenarios of analysts. While the acute phase of the conflict in Ukraine is going on, the Russian economy, including refineries, will be under pressure one way or another, so recovery may take several years,” says Maslov.

“In 2023, we do not expect global demand for oil products to return to pre-pandemic levels due to recession expectations. But growth in the second half of the year will most likely follow due to an increase in global demand for crude oil and oil products against the backdrop of China's economic recovery after the lifting of anti-COVID restrictions,” concludes Chernov.

https://vz.ru/economy/2023/3/28/1204951.html

Russia's oil exports to India grow 22-fold: Deputy Prime Minister, 03.28.2023.

Russia's oil supplies to India grew 22-fold last year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said.

"If we take into account oil supplies to India, they grew 22 times last year," Novak said during the final session of the collegium of the Russian Energy Ministry.

"Exports to the people's Republic of China and other markets have been increasing," he added.

In early March, Novak reported that Russia supplied about 67 million tons of oil to China last year, accounting for almost a third of total Russian exports.

The deputy prime minister also noted that these volumes would grow in the future.

Earlier, the Bloomberg agency said that Asia is importing more and more oil, allowing Russian exports by sea to recover from the losses suffered.

Volumes of oil bound for China, India, Turkey and from ships that do not show a final destination also reached the highest average daily value in a space of four weeks so far, reaching 3.28 million barrels.

Bloomberg assumes that the destinations indicated as "other Asia" have India as their real destination.

In December 2022, the European Union imposed an oil embargo on Russia, a measure previously applied or decided by Canada, the USA and the United Kingdom, and in February 2023 the ban was extended to petroleum products.

In December 2022 and February 2023 price ceilings on Russia's oil and petroleum products also came into force by the G7 and Australia.

Yandex Translate from Portuguese

https://sputniknewsbrasil.com.br/20230328/exportacoes-de-petroleo-da-russia-para-india-crescem-22-vezes-diz-vice-premie-russo--28216955.html

The Russian Embassy caught the US in an attempt to hide data on the "crime of the century", 03.28.2023.

Russian Embassy: US wants to slow down information about the crime of the century.

WASHINGTON, March 29 - RIA Novosti. Washington wants to "slow down" dangerous information about the involvement of American intelligence services in undermining the Nord Streams, the Russian Embassy in the United States said.

“We see this as an obvious attempt <...> to “put on the brakes” on the dangerous for the United States information from reputable journalists about the likely direct involvement of American intelligence services in organizing the “crime of the century” against critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea,” the diplomatic missions emphasized.

At the same time, the embassy added, the States are trying to "hide" behind the actions of the allies in the investigation of the causes of the incident. And Washington's assurances of full confidence in these proceedings "are not worth a penny," diplomats are sure.

According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh , the United States, with the help of NATO allies, sabotaged the Nord Stream: last summer, during the Baltops exercises, American divers mined gas pipelines, and three months later, the Norwegians set off explosive devices.

In early March, The New York Times wrote that, according to intelligence, some pro-Ukrainian group was behind the attack on Nord Stream, and official Kiev could not know anything about its plans. The press secretary of the Russian leader, Dmitry Peskov, called such publications a coordinated stuffing aimed at diverting attention.

https://ria.ru/20230329/prestuplenie-1861411655.html

This is basically how Russia's oil exports looked like before the COVID-19 lockdowns and general economic collapse.


As you can see China alone imported as much ESPO oil as Europe imported Urals oil (1 million b/day). The Western Russian ports also had plenty of slack capacity to export oil. The simple fact is Russia was not as dependent on Western oil purchases as the West would like to think. And that is how we got to the present situation.

Russia rushes to conquer the global LNG market, by Olga Samofalova for VZGLYAD. 03.29.2023.

Russia has set an ambitious goal of producing at least 100 million tons of LNG per year by 2030, despite Western sanctions. This means a threefold increase in LNG supplies to replace the affected pipeline exports to Europe. What difficulties stand in this way for Moscow? And how can the US be of great service to Russia in this regard?

The key task of Russia in the current conditions, when the infrastructure to Europe has suffered, and we have lost a fairly large volume of pipeline gas exports, is to increase the level of production and export of liquefied natural gas (LNG). This statement was made by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak at the final board of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation.

According to him, in addition to developing pipeline gas supplies to eastern countries, the LNG market is also actively developing. “We have several projects that have been implemented, there are a number of projects under implementation, such as Arctic LNG 2, Ust-Luga. We need to work on them and help implement them,” Novak says.

Russia's task is to reach the production of at least 100 million tons of LNG per year by 2030. For this, it is necessary, on the one hand, to provide the relevant projects with a resource base, and on the other hand, to ensure independence in terms of production technologies and equipment. Work on this is already underway, Novak said.

The goal of increasing LNG production from just over 30 million tons of LNG in 2022 to 100 million tons of LNG by 2030 in seven years looks extremely ambitious. We are talking about a threefold increase in LNG production, and this is a lot, says Artem Deev, head of the analytical department at AMarkets. For comparison: now the leaders of the world LNG market are Australia and the USA, which produce 80 million tons of LNG per year. Australia supplies LNG mainly to Asia, while the US supplies Asia and Europe. It took the states ten years to increase LNG production by several times.

“In terms of volume, 100 million tons of LNG replace about 140 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas. This is two-thirds of the previous gas supplies to Europe from Russia. In the best years, our country supplied the EU with 200 billion cubic meters per year,” says Deev.

Based on supplies in 2021, when Russia exported 145 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas to the EU (excluding LNG), it turns out that 100 million tons of LNG (or 140 billion cubic meters of conventional gas) can just cover the losses in the European market.

“It will be extremely difficult for Russia to enter the top three LNG producers, given the sanctions restrictions on the supply of technology from the West. We will not write off the money either: the development of the industry requires huge investments, which in the current conditions is also a big question,” Deev believes.

That is, Russia is doing just fine with natural gas resources, but there are questions with technologies and delivery of LNG.

The expert recalls that Russia has repeatedly reached a record level of natural gas supplies to Europe - about 200 billion cubic meters of gas - precisely because there was a developed delivery system: several gas pipelines went to Europe at once, some of them were built back in the Soviet period. And LNG is delivered to other countries only by sea - special LNG tankers, which are currently in short supply all over the world. “LNG consumption is growing, and the world's capacity to build LNG tankers is not keeping up with demand. Russia does not have its own capacities for the construction of such large-capacity ships; after the sanctions, a number of companies (for example, from South Korea) refused to cooperate. The Zvezda plant produced such ships, but with the help of foreign specialists, who are not currently in the Russian Federation. Of course, Novatek has its own tankers, but they are not enough."

The second problem is that LNG production requires the construction of special plants. “Russia has learned to build only small-scale LNG plants on its own. And large-capacity plants were built with the help of foreign companies, which also withdrew from the projects, in particular from Arctic LNG. There are no own technologies of such a volume in Russia, for the construction of these plants, imports and Western specialists are needed,” Artem Deev points out.

Therefore, the task of achieving the production of 100 million tons of LNG per year rests on the lack of its own fleet to transport raw materials to customers and insufficient opportunities to build new LNG plants in large volumes, the expert concludes.

Another question: will China have the need to absorb so much gas from Russia? Now Russian LNG goes mainly to Europe, since there are no sanctions, logistics there is easier and cheaper, especially in winter, than to China via the Northern Sea Route. However, the EU wants to find a way to block Russian LNG imports without the need to impose new sanctions. And if they want, they will invent such a mechanism. Then all Russian LNG will flow to China (where it was originally supposed to go).

But the question of demand from China is not so obvious, says Yevgeny Mironyuk, an expert on the stock market at BCS Mir Investments. According to him, if we focus on CNPC data, then in five years - from 2025 to 2030 - China will only double its gas consumption. Whereas Russia plans to increase LNG supplies to China by 15 times: from 6.6 million tons now to 100 million tons. In addition, gas plays a relatively small role in its energy consumption, and by 2030 natural gas will provide only 15% of the country's energy supply. At the same time, China continues to use coal, build nuclear power plants and develop alternative energy. And this is all energy that can replace gas generation.

However, one should not discount the geopolitical and economic confrontation between the United States and China, which can play into the hands of Russia, including Russian LNG. If the US bans its LNG supplies to China, on the one hand, this will jeopardize jobs in America, and on the other hand, Russia, the third largest supplier of natural gas to China, has all the cards to fill this gap, he believes edition of The National Interest. If the EU blocks the supply of Russian LNG, then the following picture will emerge: American gas will replace Russian gas in the European Union, and Russian gas will take a share of American gas as well. That is, there may be an exchange of sales markets, as is already happening in the markets for oil and oil products.

https://vz.ru/economy/2023/3/29/1205085.html