Report: Rosneft may set up petrochemical facility at Essar Oil

MOSCOW, Sep 11 (PRIME) -- Russian oil major Rosneft may establish a petrochemical facility at the Essar Oil Limited refinery in the Indian city of Vadinar, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said in an interview with Rossiya 24 television channel broadcast on Monday.

“The competition (for 49.13% in Essar Oil bought by Rosneft in August 2016) emerged due to objective reasons, as the composition of assets comprising Essar is serious: it includes 20 million tonnes of processing capacities in India…It would be wrong to say that we see no prospects here. There is a reserved land site in the project that allows for an increase in production, for construction of a second stage, possibly a petrochemical facility,” he said.

Essar Oil is able to receive and refine different blends of oil, and it services a deep-water port that allows for receipt of crude and exporting oil products. It also has a sales market of 3,500 fuel filling stations in the Indian retail market, Sechin said.

Sechin also did not rule out a possibility of prolongation of a 5-year contract for oil exports to China’s CEFC. “We have signed a new 5-year contract that encompasses supplies of additional volumes (of oil) to China to Huaxin (CEFC) for five years. We will work on increasing the terms and even volumes of exports,” he said.

The two companies signed the previous 5-year oil export contract on September 4, and it will come into force after receiving corporate approval by Rosneft. On September 8, CEFC bought 14.16% in Rosneft from a consortium of Swiss trader Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

Sechin also said that Rosneft may increase oil exports to Kazakhstan. “We will work on that with our Chinese partners and also with Kazakh partners,” he said.

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