Gazprom Neft expects sales of marine fuel to rise by 25% in 2023

ST. PETERSBURG, Aug 3 (PRIME) -- Gazpromneft Marine Bunker, an operator of oil company Gazprom Neft’s bunkering business, expects sales of marine fuel to rise by 25% in 2023, CEO Anton Sobolev told reporters on Thursday.

“We are optimistic about this year, the market is recovering. As for Gazpromneft Marine Bunker, we expect growth of our 2023 sales of marine fuel at 25% as compared with 2022, above the market recovery speed,” he said.

The company expects annual consumption of marine fuel in Russia to rise by about 20% to 7.4–7.5 million tonnes in 2023. The cargo traffic of Russian seaports grew sixfold over the past 20 years, and now the river and maritime transport carries about 850 million tonnes of cargoes per year, according to the company.

Gazprom Neft has finished more than 50 fuellings of Russian ships with liquefied natural gas (LNG) since September 2022. The company bunkers LNG in the Leningrad Region directly from the plants, which maintains high consumer quality of the fuel. The share of LNG in bunkering of ships will expand rapidly in the next 15 years, while the amount of ships running on LNG in the world already grows by 25% each year, Sobolev said.

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