Translated material
"There are no markets"
The Ministry of Industry and Energy and Gazprom were not ready to comprehensively develop Eastern Siberia
The Ministry of Industry and Energy and Gazprom admitted that they had reached a dead end in the difficult task of developing a program for creating a unified gas supply system in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. At a meeting of the supervisory board of the Russian Gas Society last Friday, representatives of the ministry and the monopolist said in different words that it was not possible to comprehensively solve the problem of resource development in this region. There is only one reason, and it has long been known - there is no ready market for large volumes of eastern gas either in Russia or abroad.In these conditions, Gazprom, it seems, is not going to defend the option in which unconditional priority is given to the Sakhalin projects. And he intends to focus on solving strategic tasks for himself, but local ones by and large: firstly, to officially secure the status of a single export channel in the eastern part of the country, and secondly, to prevent the uncontrolled development of the Kovyktinskoye field, the license for which is located in run by TNK-BP. The Ministry of Industry and Energy does not want to take responsibility for determining the general scheme for the development of gas resources in Eastern Siberia.
The director of the ministry's fuel and energy department, Anatoly Yanovsky, said last Friday that it is currently impossible to determine the optimal list of projects that can be implemented in the long term. He recalled that the steel program written by Gazprom contains three options for integrated development: “East”, “Center” and “West” (they differ mainly in the sources of pipeline gas exports). Gazprom called the “East” option the priority option, providing for the export of gas exclusively from the Sakhalin fields, the freezing of the Yakut Chayandinskoye field (still in the unallocated subsoil fund) until 2030 and the orientation of Kovykta to the domestic market. True, “West” and “Center” also practically do not imply the export of Kovykta gas. In them, priority is given to the Chayandinskoye field. According to Mr. Yanovsky, there is also an integrated version introduced by RUSIA Petroleum (subsoil user of Kovykta). It provides for the priority development of the Kovykta field and full-scale export of gas from it to China (15 billion cubic meters per year) and South Korea (10 billion cubic meters).
“The scale and complexity of the planned transformations, the objectively existing high uncertainty of long-term development parameters do not allow us to fix a single optimal list of production projects that can be implemented in the long term. In this regard, a phased implementation of the program is expected,” concluded Mr. Yanovsky. According to him, the preparatory stage, during which the state will have to reduce risks and prepare the ground for the comprehensive development of Eastern Siberia, will take one and a half to two years.
The estimated volume of investments required to develop the entire Eastern Siberia (no matter which option) has grown again in a couple of months. If a year ago we were talking about 25-30 billion dollars, at the beginning of summer - about 35-40 billion dollars, now, according to Mr. Yanovsky, the amount has been rounded up to 50 billion dollars. By the way, the need for another He later explained that it was necessary to take a long pause in writing the program (the program had already been considered by the government two years ago, and then it was ordered to be finalized) by the need to work out a mechanism for the return of such significant funds. “The problem of investment is a problem of the market: if there is a market, then investments can be attracted to it, if there is no market, then these investments are not needed. We don't have markets. There is a market when there are contracts, but when there is only the sum of wishes, then it is not a market. And in order for contracts to appear, it is necessary to carry out this complex of work from the point of view of uncertainty (solving problems - Ed. ). And contracts should be concluded by Gazexport,” the official emphasized.
Meanwhile, Gazprom is not doing well with concluding contracts with potential buyers. In the program itself, the marketing part (analysis of the gas market in Asia-Pacific countries) took up two and a half pages out of two hundred. Speaking about the forecast for Russian gas consumption in China, Deputy Head of the Gazprom Strategic Development Department Sergei Pankratov noted the presence of “competition between the supply of Russian natural gas and the supply of other Russian energy resources - oil and electricity.” The concern's manager also pointed out the dominance of local cheap coal in the fuel and energy balance. “Based on this factor, the Chinese are building tactics and strategies for negotiating with us in order to get the most favorable prices for themselves,” he complained. In addition, LNG supplies from other regions - from the Middle East, Australia, Indonesia - will compete with the planned supplies of pipeline gas from Russia. The program itself also notes one of the most important points - low forecast gas prices in China: only $126 per thousand cubic meters until 2020, while in Europe they already exceed $200.
“In order to implement our program with maximum benefit for the state and subsoil users, we need state support,” said Mr. Pankratov. -- Among the measures of state support are the consolidation of export policy on the basis of a single export channel, the implementation of large export projects in the fuel and energy sector on the basis of intergovernmental agreements and, most importantly, coordination on the part of the state of the implementation of all projects for the export of Russian energy resources - gas, oil, electricity, gas chemical products."
Anatoly Yanovsky again supported him in this endeavor.