25/11/18: Russian South Stream 2.0 Comes Out of the Shadows

Russia and Turkey have announced that the two countries have reached significant progress in reviving the November 2014-shut down South Stream gas pipeline intended to land Russian gas across the Black Sea. The project is the part of the already secured open tender contracts for purchases of gas signed between Gazprom, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.

Source: Kommersant

The new Black Sea gas pipeline Turkish Stream will run under sea from Krasnodar to a landing hubv just west of Istanbul. On November 19, presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Istanbul to announce the completion of pipeline's off-shore section.

Pipeline capacity is for 30 bullion cubic meters, bcm, although initial phase capacity will be closer to 17bcm (the first pipe). Currently, Gazprom supplies the above volume (30bcm) to Turkey (ca 16bcm), Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. Turkish market has been supplied via Blue Stream pipeline, and the other countries are supplied via Ukraine.

Based on reports from Russia's Kommersant (https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3806415), Gazprom has managed to achieve two feats:

1. Gazprom has completed laying two (not one) pipes for Turkish Stream, one intended to supply Turkey and another, to supply Southern Europe, 
2. Gazprom secured tenders for purchases of gas from all EU states to be connected to the South Stream project (Bulgaria's open tender closes in December 2018, but all other countries have already signed onto supply agreements).

Significantly, the tenders were secured in compliance with the EU Energy Directives. This means that Gazprom latest venture has addressed the main cause of the EU's original objections to the same pipeline prior to 2014. In the case of open tenders process, Gazprom used exactly the same scheme to secure capacity orders for its Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia back in 2017. According to the experts cited by Kommersant, this makes in impossible for the EU to shut down the project.

Of course, history reminder due, South Stream was primarily killed off not by the EU, but by the U.S. keen on protecting Ukraine's near monopoly on Russian gas transit. The Obama Administration exerted massive pressure on Bulgaria and other South Stream-receiving countries to prevent landing Russian gas in Southern Europe. So far, there has been little indication what Washington's position on the latest iteration of the South Stream might be, but I doubt it will be welcoming.

Kommersant-quoted stats on South Stream are impressive: according to the paper sources, Gazprom signed delivery tenders with Slovakia for seven years from October 2022 for 4.3bcm, of which Austria will get 3.8bcm, 4.7bcm will go to Hungary, 2bcm to Serbia, and 4.8bcm to Bulgaria. So, comes October 2022,  the South Stream (or Turkey Stream, or whatever you want to call this) will be pumping into Southern Europe the equivalent of the current transit through Ukraine.

Between two new pipelines, Gazprom can easily deliver its current supply contracts to Europe by-passing Ukraine, although, if European demand continues to expand at the current rates, it is likely that Gazprom will need to retain some Ukrainian transit capacity into the future. Even in 2021, before South Stream comes fully on stream, Russian gas transit via Ukraine can fall to below 10bcm per annum.

These developments are undoubtedly a major concern for Ukraine - the country already raised criticism of the South Stream on November 19 - as transit of Russian gas via Ukraine is a major revenue earner for Kyiv. Based on the European Council on Foreign Relations data, between 1991 and 2000, Ukraine accounted for 93 percent of Russian gas transit to Europe; by January 2014, this amounted to 49 percent. Naftogaz, Ukrainian State gas company, tried repeatedly to extract monopoly-level revenues from Gazprom. Back in 2008, Naftogaz tried to charge Gazprom $9 per tcm/100km in transit fees - triple the price charged for transit by Slovakia and Poland, and more than double the fee charged by the majority of the Western European states. This pricing came on top of Ukrainian authorities expecting Gazprom to supply gas to Ukraine for domestic consumption at severely subsidised prices. It is, of course, worth noting that Gazprom itself is a monopoly and has, in the past, used its dominant market positions to exercise market power. There are no innocents (other than European buyers of gas) in the long-running disputes between Naftogaz-Ukraine and Gazprom-Russia.

Nonetheless, the situation is asymmetric. Russia currently continues to rely on Ukraine for transit of its main traded commodity, while Ukraine continues to rely on Russia for a large share of its economic activity. In a recent note, Bruegel (http://bruegel.org/2018/01/the-clock-is-ticking-ukraines-last-chance-to-prevent-nord-stream-2/) estimated that Nord Stream 2 coming on line can cost Ukrainian economy ca 2-3 percent of GDP in foregone Russian gas transit earnings. South Stream is likely to add another 1.5 percent.  In the longer run, overall cost to Ukraine of losing Russian gas transit routes can cost as much as 5-6 percent of GDP.

Note: the latest developments in the Sea of Azov can put significant political pressure on the South Stream project, if the EU and the U.S. choose to significantly escalate their pressure on Russia in the wake of the Russian blockade of trade routes through Kerch Straits and in response to the naval incidents reported today. Both, the reported blockade and the naval incident, are worrying developments, and the onus is on Russia to rapidly de-escalate the already volatile situation in the Azov Sea. There are no justifiable reason for restricting Ukraine's access to trade routes, and for increasing military tensions in the region.

5/3/15: Russian Oil & Gas: production and exports

Russian energy exports in the year of economic sanctions -  a nice survey Oil Price (h/t to @RussiaInsider) via http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Impotent-Western-Sanctions-Fail-To-Disrupt-Russian-Energy-Exports.html.

Basic summary: volumes are up (coal), holding (uranium). But, tellingly, no discussion of oil and gas exports. Reason: both are under twin pressures of price and sanctions. So a quick add-on:

• Oil revenues: switching wells off in Siberia in the winter is tricky, risky and hard to do, so the black gold continues to flow even at current prices. But 2014 oil exports revenues were down 11.4% to USD153.8 billion and volume of exports was down 5.6% y/y to 223.4 million tons. 
• Oil production: OPEC estimates Russian oil production to decline by 70,000 bpd in 2015 with exports declining by 60,000 bpd y/y. Meanwhile some industry players have much more gloomy outlook: Lukoil sees a possible drop in Russian production of 800,000 bpd by the end of 2016: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/03/russia-crisis-lukoil-idUSL5N0W537K20150303. Meanwhile, December 2014 saw a sharp rise in Russian oil exports to 4.4 million bpd as the Government cut export duty from 59% to 42%. New duty covers also 2015, so we can expect some support for production levels. OPEC estimated Russian production volumes to average 10.58 million bpd, with Q1 2015 forecast of 10.6 million bpd and Q2 forecast of 10.54 millions bpd.
• Gas: full year estimates for Gazprom exports are down 18.6% y/y to USD54.73 billion, volume of exports down 12.1% to 172.6 billion cubic meters. Average contracted price in 2014: USD317 per 1,000 cubic meters, down 7.5% y/y.
• Gas plans: Russia has been aggressively shifting new contracts for supplies to Asia Pacific and Turkey. By Energy Ministry estimates, Russian gas exports to Asia will rise from 14 bcm in 2014 to 130 bcm in 2035 and oil and coal exports will more than double.
• Worth noting the increasing switch in favour of refined petroleum products exports, discussed here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/russia-oil-exports-idUSL6N0TS1XV20141209
• Overall trade impact of the above was to drive down exports revenues to USD782.9 billion or down 7% y/y. Trade surplus was USD210.9 billion in 2014.
• If imports remain where they were in 2014, and oil price averages of 2015 at USD45 pb, Central Bank of Russia estimates a decline in exports revenues (and trade balance) os around USD 160 billion - painful, but still leaving the country in a trade surplus.

5/2/15: Gazprom's Nord and South Streams: Lessons Learned, Strategy Changed

I just published a long note on the trials and tribulations of the ill-fated South Stream gas pipeline project that was designed to deliver Russian gas to Bulgaria and Southern Europe. Here is the link: http://trueeconomicslr.blogspot.ie/2015/02/5215-gazproms-nord-and-south-streams.html

14/1/2015: Gazprom to Europe: See You in Turkey

And we have it... from the mouthpiece of Moscow, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta (link to Russian version here).

Head of "Gazprom" Alexei Miller announced new strategy in response to the changes to the EU energy policy. This involves:
1) South Stream pipeline is dead. Permanently.
2) South Stream is to be replaced by Turkish Stream, crossing Black Sea and landing in Turkey, with no plans for connecting to Europe.
3) If Europe wants Russia gas, it will have to build its own connection from Turkey.
4) All gas supplied via Ukraine - currently 63 bcm of gas going to Europe via Ukraine transit - will be shipped via Turkish Stream.
5) Shipments of gas via non-Ukraine transit will continue (in 2013 total Russian gas supplies to Europe were 161.5 bcm and in 2014 these were down roughly 10 percent).

All of this is a response to the EU plans to monopolise purchasing of energy from outside the EU. The EU is aiming to increase its bargaining power both vis-a-vis prices of delivery and delivery channels (pipelines access). Understandably, Russian objective is to retain some pricing power and control over transit systems (remember, these systems are built either using Russian funds or a combination of funds involving Russian funds).

The implications of Miller's announcement are wide-ranging. In effect, Russia is calling Europe's bluff on both Ukraine and Energy Union.

If Ukraine is shut out of transit of Russian gas, Kiev will be forced to lock into European supply systems. The risk of non-payments - a very material risk given Kiev's track record over the 1990s and 2000s - will fall squarely onto European system. Alternatively, Ukraine will be exposed to the risk of Gazprom dictating its terms on gas supplies to Ukraine. Ukraine will also lose lucrative billions in transit fees (ca USD3bn in 2013 alone) and will face new costs for shipments of gas - cheaper via direct route from Russia, more expensive via European system link up.

Turkey is a big winner here as it gets to become the dominant key hub (ahead of Nord Stream) for transit of gas to Europe (including Central Asian gas).

EU is not necessarily a loser in this, however. Owning the pipe from Turkey to Europe, the EU will be able to negotiate transit of Central Asian gas as a substitute for Russian gas with minimal capital expenditure.

19/12/2014: Some links on Russian Crisis

Several interesting news this week on Russian corporate front.

One of the longer-running deal, the swap of assets between German BASF and Russian Gazprom was finally killed off on foot of sanctions. The deal collapse is one of the first spillovers to Europe from the Ruble crisis and the overall deterioration in Russian markets. Details here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-12-18/gazprom-deal-to-swap-assets-with-basf-ends-as-relations-sour.html. Key quote from the point of macro analysis: "BASF attributed the breakdown in the agreement to “the currently difficult political environment.” “We will continue our joint ventures in Europe and Russia,” the company said in a statement. “The facts clearly show: Europe and Russia need each other also in the future.”"

Russian Duma approved the bill to recapitalise the banks, injecting some USD16.5 billion worth of funding into the banking system. Details: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/19/russia-crisis-banks-capital-idUSL6N0U318520141219?feedType=RSS&feedName=bondsNews.

This, amidst the already rolling contagion from Russian financial services to Europe's: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/18/russia-crisis-raiffeisen-idUSL6N0U23AT20141218 as Ruble devaluations help drive Raiffeisen Bank International's overall capital ratio one percentage point down. Austria has the largest exposure of to Russian banks - see http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/12/19122014-russian-banks-contagion.html.

And for the last bit, here is the latest polling from Russia:

2/12/2014: South Stream Axed. Confusion Magnified.

Two slightly bizarre - in terms of implied contradictions - but nonetheless informative - articles on South Stream pipeline:

1. A very well-argued article by Leonid Bershidsky http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-02/putins-gas-deal-with-turkey-is-a-defeat which correctly states the role of Bulgarian Government in effectively ending any prospect for the South Stream.
2. A strange article on FT site claiming that Bulgaria is allegedly 'shocked' by the Russian decision. (Aside from that point - quite an informative article). http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1a5954f0-7a41-11e4-a8e1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3Klrl4xGW

This exemplifies the all-too-often ideological positioning on the issues relating to Russia in the media - causing confusion and haphazardly throwing around statements and comments. 

17/6/2014: Gas, Oil, Russia, Ukraine & Europe: couple of links

An interesting report from Bloomberg on Russia's demand for oil exploration and production JVs with Western companies: here.
One core reference is to the new/old Bazhenov superfield which I covered before here.
Meanwhile, I commented before that Ukraine gas supply disruption is a distinct issue from the European gas supplies, as Ukraine has a separate contract relating to gas transit and this contract has always been paid in full and there are no arrears on it. Ukraine legally does not own the gas it transits. In other words, any disruption to supply of gas to Europe via Ukraine can only come from Ukrainian authorities appropriating gas that belongs to other countries. I expect this to be highly unlikely, especially since Ukraine has pumped in gas reserves sufficient to last it through mid-December 2014.
To confirm this, here is the EU Commission position on the issue of security of supply to European customers. 
And Gazprom position on the issue: "Russian gas transit supplies via Ukraine are being delivered in routine mode. The daily gas amount stands at slightly more than 185 million cubic meters. An emergency headquarters started working in Russian energy giant Gazprom, monitoring the situation every day. If Gazprom finds that gas intended for Europe is left in Ukraine, Russia will increase gas supplies via Nord Stream and Yamal-Europe projects, Miller said. The upstream throughput capacity of Ukrainian gas delivery system makes 288 billion cubic meters and the downstream one amounts to 178.5 billion cubic meters. The country’s gas transportation system consists of 72 gas compressor stations, 110 shops and 1,451 gas hubs. The length of gas pipelines makes 38,600 kilometers."

Predictably, Ukraine blames 'terrorists' (aka 'separatists') for today's explosion. Report here. However, not known for its pro-Russian views, Euronews had to acknowledge that "...explosion was far from the violence in east Ukraine..." Never mind, we know Ukraine has no extremists on the other side of the ethnic divide... why, none at all... and none of them would ever want to do any harm to Gazprom lines to Europe... why, never, of course. It is just so slightly inconvenient that Mr Yatsenuk's own backers - Euro Maidan - are on the record saying they are in favour of blowing up pipelines: http://euromaidanpr.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/plan-b-flatten-belgorod/.

Nice touch there ahead of spreading uranium, and shelling Russian cities (the brave folks would obviously expect Russia to not retaliate),

Truth is - we simply do not know who blew up the pipe, and it is unlikely we will ever find out.

23/5/2014: Another 'Big Deal' of the Russian Week

Thought the Russian gas deal with China was a 'biggy'... at USD400-440 billion valuation (over 30 years) it is. And here are some of the details: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/05/2152014-russia-china-gas-deal.html

Welcome to the big numbers week for Russia. Today, Lukoil and Total announced a new deal for developing Bazhnov Shale Oil Field: http://www.lukoil.ru/press_6_5div__id_21_1id_24775_.html

The field (dating to Jurassic deposits) was discovered 45 years ago back in 1968 by an accident, the field is currently being developed by a number of companies, including a partnership between Rosneft and ExxonMobil, and Salym Petroleum - a JV between Shell and Gazprom Neft.

So far, reported recoverable reserves are officially booked at 3.5 billion barrels (500 million metric tonnes). Official estimates are for daily yields of 1-2 million barrels per day by the end of this decade. For comparative, US North Dakota aims to reach production levels of 1.2 million barrels per day by 2015 - this is the largest US shale oil play at this time. Its biggest field - Bakken - is small comapred to Bazhenov (see here one older report: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/06/04/bakken-bazhenov-shale-oil/ and an FT report on same: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/17e0e3d0-25c6-11e3-aee8-00144feab7de.html#axzz32YDYxj72).

Overall estimates put Bazhenov reserves at between 20 billion barrels and 950 billion -1 trillion barrels, which runs into recoverable equivalents of up to 160-170 billion barrels. Merill Lynch 2013 assessment estimated reserves at 75 billion barrels (recoverable , EIU estimates from 2013 show Bazhenov recoverable reserves at between 3.7 and 14.8 billion barrels of light crude. At mid-point (excluding outlandishly large 160bn estimate), this implies some 40 billion barrels worth around USD3.3 trillion at past decade averages. Which puts into perspective that USD440 billion gas deal.

At the upper end of this estimate, Bazhnov field pushes to 4 times Saudi Arabia's oil reserves or roughly 30 years of world supply at current demand levels. This is why IEA considers Bazhenov field as the world's largest source of shale. Of course, Russia is already producing more oil than Saudi Arabia with daily production of 10.3 million barrels per day and Russian most productive fields - those of West Siberia, like Salym group, are declining, with production dropping at an average of 2% annually.

Here's the map of Russia's main oil producing regions:

Bazhenov covers roughly 1/3rd of the West Siberian basin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USGS_-_Bazhenov_Formation_Oil_Reservoir.png)

But back to the Russia-China gas deal... there is huge legacy infrastructure network linking Europe with Western Siberian basin, and virtually no networks linking it to the Asia-Pacific. With the gas agreement signed this week, this is about to start changing. Which means that the gas deal will promise to wire shale oil and gas reserves of the entire Siberia into the massive AP markets, providing two key deliverables for Russia:

1. Diversification of demand, linking more closely pricing in the Western European markets (stagnant of economic growth and demographic expansion) to that of dynamic AP. Russia wins in this scenario big time, as it will no longer be held hostage to the declining macroeconomic fortunes of the EU.
2. Head-on competition with North America (where LNG and oil shipments will have to go via sea transport as opposed to pipe in Russian case).

Europe also wins, as the second point above will help contain energy price inflation in the EU as North Sea production declines in decades ahead.

The point that is being missed on the Russia-China deal by many analysts is that, politics aside, Russia will benefit from a massive shifting of economic activity East - to the regions rich in resources and starving of infrastructure to develop them. With this shift, Russian social development also will gain - the sparsely populated expanses of Eastern Siberia can do with the population growth that can happen on foot of large and sustained capex uplift.