Oil retention

Rosneft does not have time to fill the ESPO oil pipeline on time

Rosneft yesterday announced the postponement of the commissioning of the Vankor field, which should become one of the main fillers of the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline. The vice-president of the company, Mikhail Stavsky, said during a telephone conference that the commissioning of the field was being postponed from the end of 2008 to mid-2009. The delay, he said, is due to the expansion of the project: in 2003, Vankor’s recoverable reserves were 125 million tons, and peak production was predicted at 12 million tons, but as a result of large-scale geological exploration, the reserves were increased to 515 million tons. Mr. Stavsky said that the new technological development scheme, prepared this year taking into account the further increase in reserves, provides for an increase in the maximum level of oil production to 23 million tons per year. "It is impossible to increase the planned maximum production to more than double the original plans and still meet the same time frame," he said. A source in the company told Vremya Novostey that Rosneft sent relevant notifications to all relevant ministries and departments, although there has been no official response to them yet. At the same time, Transneft, which is building the ESPO, has not yet received any notifications from Rosneft about the delay in the delivery of oil to this pipeline.

In the last year, when the new leadership of Transneft said that it was not meeting the construction deadline for the ESPO, the country's leadership - both Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin - constantly rushed the monopoly. As a result, the government and Transneft announced that the commissioning date for the first stage (early 2010) - from Taishet to Skovorodino (Amur Region) - would not be missed. And this week, at a meeting in Vladivostok, the prime minister signed an instruction to the government “to speed up the construction of ESPO lines and avoid delays.”

The main goal of the pipeline, the first stage of which was laid in the spring of 2006, is to connect the oil fields of Western and Eastern Siberia with the Pacific coast. The planned throughput capacity of the ESPO is 80 million tons per year, the length is over 4,770 km. The throughput capacity of the first stage will be 30 million tons of oil per year.

However, if Vankor does not supply oil to ESPO in the volumes that were previously planned, the oil pipeline is unlikely to be able to reach commercial loading. It was planned that the ESPO would initially be filled with West Siberian oil: about 25 million tons per year would be supplied by Rosneft, another 2 million by Surgutneftegaz, and the remaining 3 million by TNK-BP. Transneft told Vremya Novostey yesterday that it had not yet received any messages from Rosneft about problems with the timing of the Vankor commissioning. “Rosneft did not officially inform us about any shifts in schedules,” says Mikhail Barkov, vice president of the monopoly. - However, we have received applications from oil companies for much larger volumes than necessary to fill the first stage. The same “Surgutneftegas” will be able to make up for the lack of oil.”

However, a source familiar with the situation says that until production volumes at Vankor reach the level necessary to load the ESPO, Surgutneftegaz will use the oil pipeline in reverse mode, as is now happening with the first string of the pipe. Vladimir Bogdanov’s company transports oil produced at the Talakanskoye field via the ESPO to Taishet, and it is unlikely to be able to increase production by almost an order of magnitude. “But even if such a miracle happens,” says the source, “it is not clear what Surgutneftegaz will do later, when Vankor oil arrives at ESPO; the oil pipeline is not rubber.” After the first stage of the ESPO to Skovorodino is completed, it is planned to develop the oil flow and transport oil from Skovorodino by rail to the Pacific coast and/or to China (until the second stage of the ESPO is built). It was impossible to get a comment from Surgutneftegaz yesterday due to the time difference with Moscow.

However, in the current conditions, when the price of oil on world markets is falling and there is no talk of a sharp increase in the foreseeable future, the scheme for exporting via the ESPO to the east using rail transportation looks less attractive compared to the reverse use of the ESPO and further pumping via Transneft pipelines to the west. Perhaps this circumstance was the main reason why Rosneft decided to openly announce the postponement of the start of commercial oil production at Vankor.

True, this is not the first time these deadlines have been postponed. According to the Minister of Industry and Energy of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Denis Pashkov, one of the main problems is too warm winters. “The fact is that some of the equipment at Vankor is delivered via winter roads. And the service life of winter roads depends on weather conditions,” he said in a recent interview. - Accordingly, the warm winters that occurred for two years in a row shortened this period. In this regard, the delivery of goods along the winter road from the Tyumen region was difficult, and it is for this reason that not all equipment was delivered on time... Therefore, the period of industrial operation was postponed to the second quarter of 2009. But the first oil - about 16 thousand tons - will actually be produced this year. It will be used for Vankorneft's own needs. Next year, production will reach 2 million tons.”

Kirill MELNIKOV, Nikolai GORELOV