PRESS: Ministry supports permitting Rosneft to export natural gas

MOSCOW, Nov 10 (PRIME) -- The Russian Energy Ministry supports the idea of permitting oil major Rosneft to export natural gas through an agent agreement with gas giant Gazprom, Minister Nikolai Shulginov said in an interview to Kommersant business daily published on Wednesday.

“We support this topic, if an agent agreement with Gazprom is signed,” he said. “It will not contradict the law, though will be an experiment of sorts.”

Shulginov said Rosneft’s projects Rospan and Kharampur may become the resource base for the exports. When asked that the Kharampurskoye field is far from being launched, Shulginov said, “I did not say it this would happen soon.”

Rosneft plans to launch Kharampur in 2022, and the ministry expects the gas prices to remain attractive in the year, he said.

The government did not discuss liberalization of the wholesale gas prices, or separation of transportation costs from production costs, because there is already a decision, he said.

The ministry also expects Russia to produce around 560 million tonnes of oil in 2023–2024. “Our task is to ensure competitiveness of our resource on the international market, we should not only want to raise the production figure,” he said.

Shulginov also said that the ministry planned to introduce mandatory monthly exchange sales of coal at 10% of the combined coal sales in the country in 2022.

“We are working on the issue. We will most likely implement the initiative next year,” he said.

He also said that the authorities may raise the mineral extraction tax (MET) for steam coal following the increase of the tax for coking coal, but even if MET is raised, it will be small growth.

Combined spending on construction of power infrastructure for the Eastern Polygon of Russian Railways, which includes the Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM) and the Trans-Siberian Railway (Ttranssib) should amount to around 1 trillion rubles, as it includes construction of numerous power generation and transmission facilities, he said.

He also said that the ministry may prolong the upgrade program for the thermal power plants for 10 years after it expires in 2031.

(71.2866 rubles – U.S. $1)

End %%md/jst%%