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

Russia delivers the largest volume of LNG to China in 12 months and increases its crude shipments by 25%, 09.22.2024.

By the end of the summer, Moscow increased shipments of its hydrocarbons to China, according to the analysis of data from the Chinese customs authorities. This occurs against the background of attempts by Western countries to expel Russian oil and gas from world markets and damage the Russian economy.

Russia supplied the Asian giant with 872,000 tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in July 2024 — the highest monthly volume in the last 12 months, according to data from the General Administration of Customs of China. It should be noted that more deliveries were registered exactly one year ago, in July 2023 (1 million tons).

Although in terms of the volume of LNG supply to China, Russia ranked third in July only behind Australia (2 million tons) and Qatar (1.62 million tons), in terms of the total volume of gas transported by pipelines and liquefied natural gas exported to that country, Moscow maintains the first place (3,800 million cubic metres).

Overall, in July 2024, Beijing increased its natural gas imports in relation to the same month in 2023 by 8%. This is a new high for the corresponding month, as well as the second highest result in the history of the country's customs statistics, according to the aforementioned agency.

Similarly, Moscow increased oil supplies to China by more than a quarter. Specifically, according to the customs body, shipments from Russia increased in July by 25.6%, to reach 2.21 million barrels per day (b/d), which corresponds to 9.37 million tons per month. Beijing's spending on Russian crude oil last August amounted to $5.39 billion.

The second largest oil supplier was Malaysia. Iraq also increased its exports, while Saudi Arabia reduced shipments to China by 17.4%, to 1.25 million b/d. In absolute terms, Beijing imported 49.1 million tons of oil in August, up from 42.34 million tons in July.

After Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, numerous Western countries imposed sanctions on Russian energy resources, including oil, refusing to buy it and preventing Moscow from trading it on world markets.

The purpose of these restrictions was to hit Russia's economy and prevent it from achieving its goals in Ukraine. However, the result of these measures was nothing less than an aggravation of the energy crisis in the West itself, which intensified the recession in several countries, such as Germany.

At the same time, Russia found alternative markets for its resources among the countries that did not support such illegal unilateral measures of the collective West.

Yandex Translate from Spanish.

https://noticiaslatam.lat/20240922/rusia-entrega-a-china-el-mayor-volumen-de-gnl-en-12-meses-y-eleva-sus-envios-de-crudo-en-un-25-1157681927.html

The Chinese and Indians are not stupid and will create capacity to buy and use cheap Russian energy because even if they don't need it themselves they can always sell it to European countries.

No doubt the Chinese government is looking at the Russian gas reserves and their efforts to divert supply in their direction and thinking they can close down less efficient power generation plants like coal fired plants if the pipelines for gas can be put in place the transfer of energy is quicker and easier and more efficient... something Europe used to benefit from.

Even piping gas supplies directly to North Korea would help their energy management and would also enable them to continue the pipelines to South Korea for which SK can get cheap energy too and NK can earn transit fees for also.