Russian Oil and Gas Industry: News #4

par far wrote:I don't know if it is true or not but I read that most of Venezuela's oil was very heavy and only two countries in the world had the capacity to cure it, US and China.

I do see that Russia must do something about TAP pipelines, and the houthis should be assisted as the red sea closure is favorable for Russia to force NSR as the only remaining ship route

lancelot wrote:

JohninMK wrote:Do we have any confirmation that Ukraine will actually stop gas transit in 3 days time when the contract expires?

Even if they do this, I think the main impact will be on gas supply to Transnistria and Moldova.

Hungary, Serbia, Greece, North Macedonia, and Bosnia already have alternate supply going via TurkStream. Turkey no longer gets gas from Ukraine as well. Hasn't in years.

lancelot wrote:

kvs wrote:There is enough capacity for the Balkans but not for all of the EU. But the EU does not want any Russian gas, so its all fine.

If the EU really wanted Russian gas the overland Yamal pipeline can carry 33 bcm/y. It hasn't gone anywhere.

Russia stopped pumping gas though the Yamal pipeline because the EU stopped ordering gas and the Polish government seized Gazprom assets in Poland.

Arkanghelsk wrote:Ust Luga will replace Nord Stream 2 completely, if the pipelines planned capacity was 55+ BCM, and Baltic LNG will produce 45 BCM, we talk a small difference

Russian tanker passaging Red Sea

GarryB wrote:Interesting idea but I would just send ships with enough gas and oil for Kaliningrads needs and perhaps some extra they can sell for a decent profit. The rest I would redirect to Asia where the potential market is actually rather bigger than the European market and where the countries that receive the energy Russia sells can trade in other goods and not want to lecture Russia as to how it behaves and who it trades with.

Let their industry suffer and diminish for lack of cheap energy and pump cheap energy into Asia and Africa and central and south america and let those countries develop and grow and live a better life for a nice change.

The West is already talking about blockading Russia's access to the Baltic.

Hole wrote:
Which would be an act of war.
Anti-ship missiles will fly, followed by nuclear tipped missiles.

Russia's Gazprom builds pilot LNG plant using own Gazprom MR technology

MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - Gazprom has built a pilot plant to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) using its own Gazprom MR (GMR) technology, the Russian gas giant's flagship research center, VNIIGAZ reported.

"A number of important research and development projects were carried out in 2022 that make it possible to increase PJSC Gazprom's technological independence. A pilot plant to produce LNG using the domestic technology Gazprom MR was built at the trial facility," Gazprom VNIIGAZ LLC said in a report.

Gazprom deputy CEO Oleg Aksyutin said earlier in the company's in-house magazine that this project "opens up possibilities for the implementation of Gazprom LNG projects based on its own technology."

The process was developed at Gazprom VNIIGAZ and Gazprom secured the patent for the technology in 2014.

Distinguishing features of the technology is preliminary cooling and liquefaction of gas using a multicomponent cooling agent containing primarily light hydrocarbons; supercooling through a nitrogen gas circuit; and balanced distribution of compressor equipment capacity with the possibility of using generic gas turbine drives.

"The advantages are that the technology is aimed at medium- and large-scale LNG production, and can work in various outside temperatures with maximum energy efficiency. The more energy efficient we are, the more competitive we will be in LNG production," Gazprom VNIIGAZ deputy CEO for development, Leonty Eder said on TV channel Rossiya24.

GMR is an enhanced process worth a mixed cooling agent that has low per-unit energy costs comparable to the most cost effective cycles in the world. The GMR process was developed, optimized and is well suited for liquefying natural gas on a large scale. All of the elements of the process use domestic equipment.

lancelot wrote:

Arkanghelsk wrote:Baltic LNG at Ust Luga will see 45 BCM per annum, loaded at the port onto tankers and sent to Europe
It's a lie that Europe doesn't want gas, they say so in public, but Spain, Italy, Germany, all continue to purchase gas, but they won't report tanker sales as it's much easier to hide it from their own idiot politicians
Ust Luga will replace Nord Stream 2 completely, if the pipelines planned capacity was 55+ BCM, and Baltic LNG will produce 45 BCM, we talk a small difference

Building huge LNG liquefaction capability in the Baltic is a mistake. The West is already talking about blockading Russia's access to the Baltic.
Existing liquefaction capability is more than enough for Kaliningrad.

There is also the issue that building LNG liquefaction facilities requires huge compressors. In Arctic LNG these are supposed to be done with Western imported gas turbine engines. There aren't any Russian gas turbines of the required size and power yet. There is a project to make huge LNG liquefaction facilities near Murmansk using electricity from nuclear power to move the compressors. I think this is way more viable than making LNG facilities in the Baltic. If you place the facilities in Murmansk then you can move the LNG either to Europe or Asia as you want to without risk of blockade.

There is also the issue that Russia doesn't have enough LNG tankers and they were using French technology to make the LNG tanks in the tankers they were building at Zvezda shipyard. Further orders to build LNG tanker ships in South Korea, the main world builder of such ships right now, was also cancelled just in case they also decide to sanction those. With the Western embargo on sales of such technology to Russia, they will have to make their own technology to build such ships, and switch orders to Chinese shipyards.

While I think Russia's LNG export capacity will increase, I think most liquefaction capability will be built in ports in Northern Russia, and a massive effort to import substitute technologies must happen first.