Gazprom in Flurry of Handshakes, As US Steps up Sanctions
Gazprom and Rosneft have announced a plethora of new trade and technology cooperation agreements at a trade fair in the Russian far east city of Vladivostok, one day after the US Treasury Department on September 1 issued a new list of individuals and companies covered by US trade sanctions.
The US sanctions are directed at Russia's continued occupation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine and can be seen here. However few if any appear directed at major upstream companies. Similarly, most of the Gazprom deals with foreign firms concern 'possible' cooperation.
The US order targets "17 Ukrainian separatists" involved in the "self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic" or "so-called Republic of Crimea", and enterprises "involved in the construction of the Kerch Bridge [linking the peninsula with mainland Russia], defence firms operating in Crimea, [or] entities operating in Crimean maritime sector".
Gazprom told Reuters news agency September 2 that none of the new US Treasury sanctions would affect its business.
In a possible riposte, Gazprom's press department also issued four statements on September 2 on new agreements with foreign firms. Two involve "potential cooperation": one with Linde is on mid-scale LNG production – its second cooperation agreement with the German gas technology company in three months; the other is with South Korea's Samsung Electronics following a meeting in Vladivostok with its president Park Sang-Jin.
Miller also met Samsung Electronics president Park Sang-Jin in Vladivostok (Photo credit: Gazprom)
A third agreement is a memo to co-operate with Japan's Mitsui on LNG bunkering studies, while a fourth concerned a meeting with the CEO of South Korean state LNG importer Kogas, Lee Seung-hun, on September 2 also at the Eastern Economic Forum 2016 in Vladivostok "addressing prospects of boosting Russian LNG supplies to Korea" after the commissioning of a planned third Sakhalin LNG train, yet to take a final investment decision.
In his meeting with Linde CEO Wolfgang Buechele the same day in Vladivostok, Miller discussed ongoing and future cooperation including on construction of the Amur gas processing plant, for which engineering surveys for its first start-up complex have been conducted.
Additionally September 2, Russian state-run oil giant Rosneft announced a seismic know-how agreement with BP and Schlumberger and also an agreement to carry out a petrochemicals and gas processing plant study in eastern Siberia with China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec).
This could lead to the joint construction and operation of a gas processing and petrochemical complex, running on 5bn m³/yr of gas. They will produce high-tech polymers and petrochemical products for sales primarily on Russian and Chinese markets. The project resource base comprises Rosneft oil and gas fields of the Yurubcheno-Takhomsky cluster.
Mark Smedley