Gazprom smells opportunity as UK’s biggest gas store closes, 26 June, 2017, from ‘World Oil’-Extract

Gazprom PJSC is in talks to ramp up natural gas sales in the UK as coal plants are shuttered and the nation’s biggest storage site is closed for good. “We see an appetite from major players in the UK for additional volume of contracted gas,” Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said in an interview in Prague on Thursday, declining to provide further details on negotiations. “Our supplies to the UK increased substantially in the course of the last two years.”

The world’s biggest gas producer sees an opportunity to sell more of the fuel after Centrica Plc announced it would close its Rough storage facility in the North Sea and the nation plans to stop using coal-fired plants by the middle of next decade. Medvedev expects Britain to increase imported volumes by 8 billion to 12 billion cubic meters a year by 2025. Extra Russian gas in the UK could drive down prices by boosting competition and may help ease the sting of losing Rough, according to Nick Campbell, an energy risk manager at Inspired Energy in Preston, England.

“Technically it is encouraging,” he said. “Russian pipeline gas would offer greater flexibility than LNG delivery with gas field production being able to flex to meet demand quicker than sending a tanker from the U.S. East Coast and/or Qatar.”

Putin, Gazprom CEO, and Allseas CEO meet on pipelay vessel Pioneering Spirit to begin TurkStream pip

The offshore pipeline which will carry Russian gas to Turkey, will consist of four parallel pipelines running through the Black Sea. The pipelines will enter the water near Anapa, on the Russian coast, and come ashore on the Turkish coast some 100 kilometers west of Istanbul, near the village of Kiyikoy.

Article taken from

https://www.upstreamonline.com/online/allseas-boss-joins-putin-on-pioneering-spirit/2-1-112121

Russia’s Novatek aims topple Qatar from LNG top spot

Yamal project could be completed earlier than expected

* Arctic LNG 2 construction in 2019 subject to final decision

* Both projects could pump 70 mln T vs Qatar’s 77 mln T

* Tighter U.S. sanctions do not impact technology purchases

By Sabina Zawadzki

https://www.reuters.com/article/lng-novatek/russias-novatek-aims-topple-qatar-from-lng-top-spot-idUSL8N1JK3BK

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters)

Russian gas producer Novatek aims to topple Qatar as the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas as it gets closer to completing its first LNG project, a top executive said, batting away concerns about U.S. sanctions on the sector.

The country’s largest non-state gas producer is expected to start exporting LNG from the first phase of the Yamal project, situated far above the Arctic circle, towards the end of this year and may bring forward its final stage by six months, CFO Mark Gyetvay said.

But it is the inception of Novatek’s second, and Russia’s third, large-scale LNG project called Arctic LNG 2 that would transform the company, headed by Russia’s richest businessman Leonid Mikhelson, into a top global producer within a decade.

“We have huge ambitions to be just as large as Qatar is as one country, but as one company,” Gyetvay said in London on the sidelines of an energy forum.

Qatar and Russia have long been rivals in global gas markets. Qatar’s supplies came under the spotlight in the past month after Saudi Arabia cut economic and diplomatic ties, in a move ratcheting up a wider violent and diplomatic conflict in the Middle East.

SECOND PHASE

In terms of LNG, Qatar is by far the largest exporter, selling 77.2 million tonnes of the liquefied gas and accounting for just under 30 percent of market share in 2016, according to energy research group IHS and the International Gas Union.

Russia that year was seventh with exports of 10.8 million tonnes and a 4 percent market share. The Yamal project, once all stages are complete, will export an additional 16.5 million tonnes, which would put Russia, already the world’s largest crude oil exporter, in third place just below Australia.

Of progress on Yamal, Gyetvay said the second phase would be ready in the second half of next year while the third could be completed by the first half of 2019, rather than the second, as all facilities were expected to be delivered this year.

“If we do Arctic LNG 2 – we’ll start the process of construction in 2019 if we make that FID (final investment decision) – the plan is to make sure we have the first LNG in the market by 2023,” he said.

Mikhelson said on March 29 production from the two projects on the Yamal and neighbouring Gydan peninsula could produce more than 70 million tonnes annually – within spitting distance of Qatar’s exports. And President Vladimir Putin told Mikhelson a day later Russia not only could but would become the largest LNG exporter should the pace of development continue.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih expressed the Kingdom’s interest in participating in the Arctic LNG 2 project earlier this month although Gyetvay said it was too early to comment on any future foreign investors. Qatar already has a large investment in Russia’s energy industry in the form of the 19.5 percent stake in Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, that it bought last year with trading group Glencore.

Western sanctions on Russian companies including Novatek “obviously had an effect” on the Yamal project, Gyetvay said: “We had to revert to the use of Russian and Chinese finance”. But for now, he does not see further impact even as Washington tightened those sanctions because they concern financing rather than technology, which Novatek is free to purchase from anywhere as it needs for its projects.