World Bunkering > News > Spring 2010 > News and views

Olga Bogacheva

Competition Council begins work in Russia The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (RFAS) created an Expert Council for developing competition in the oil and oil products market on 12 October 2009. Anatoliy Golomolzin, deputy chief of RFAS, became the head of the Council. The Council consists of representatives from the federal and regional authorities, oil and oil products operators, scientific organisations, unions and public organisations, and independent experts.

The first Council meeting was held on 9 December 2009. The main issue was the development of an open trade in oil products in the Russian Federation. Participants stated that the current market situation results from market monopolisation and non-transparent pricing.

The Russian oil and oil products market is an oligopoly. Verticallyintegrated oil companies (VIOCs) occupy the major share in all market segments: field production and oil processing, storage, wholesale, small-scale wholesale and retail trade. Processing facilities are inaccessible for independent market operators; their offer of oil and oil products is small.

Oil and oil product pricing in the domestic market is nontransparent because VIOCs apply special transfer prices among their group members. VIOCs may transfer profit generation into any market segment (processing – wholesale – small-scale wholesale – retailing) thus applying pricing pressure on independent market operators in any market segment.

It is well-recognised that oil companies have resisted open trade development during the last 10 years. This issue was constantly frozen at all stages, including ministerial level. However, efforts made by the government and RFAS brought some results; during January-October 2009 the amount of oil and oil products sold on the exchanges and via electronic trade reached 5,420,000 tonnes. All meeting participants agreed on the necessity of open trade on the oil product market and positively estimated the influence of this mechanism on the market pricing process.

In 2010 the Expert Council will consider the rules of equal access to oil and oil products transport services, work out a set of measures to ensure the development of competition on the oil and oil product market, and continue to discuss other important issues.

PORT NEWS

Lukoil and Rosmorport to develop marine ports and bunkering services

Lukoil and Rosmorport FGUP have signed an agreement to cooperate on developing and organising towage and bunkering services. Lukoil and Rosmorport will perform technical and economic assessments for the development, reconstruction, modernisation and operation of transhipment complexes in Russian marine ports. They will also look at developing other port and coastal facilities. The companies will also cooperate on oil-spill prevention and clean-up, including building and operating specialised clean-up vessels for use beyond marine ports, oil and gas terminals, prevention and collection of accidental oil spills.

Rosmorport navigation pilots will provide preferential escort services to Lukoil vessels. Lukoil-Bunker will provide bunkering services to Rosmorport vessels in Russia and abroad under separate contracts.

“Lukoil considers waterborne transport as one of the most important instruments to ensure reliable supply of customers with oil and oil products. Its significance grows while new fields are developed and operated. Thus, our cooperation with Rosmorport is a long-term project to improve the safety of energy resources deliveries,” said Vagit Alekperov, Lukoil president.

IMO voluntary port audit completed

IMO experts completed a voluntary audit of Russian ports on 7 October 2009. Vitaliy Kluev, deputy director of State Policies in Marine and River Transport Department, Russian Ministry of Transport, said that the international experts’ opinion about the port industry was very positive. The media also quoted Hemming Hindborg, Denmark, who emphasised that he “couldn’t find this high preparation level” in port inspections he had carried out at ports in other countries.

Deep-water port for Kaliningrad Gulf?

City authorities are looking at transferring port activities out of Kaliningrad to the Balga peninsula. The idea emerged after Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, visited the Kaliningrad region in October 2009. Igor Levitin, Russian minister of transport, and a member of the governmental delegation, suggested that local stevedores consider this opportunity. City authorities claim the city’s environmental situation and its attractiveness as a tourist centre is affected by the current condition of the trade and fishery ports and the adjacent oil terminal, storage facilities and plants. Those facilities occupy a large area which is very attractive from a city development point of view.

The new port on the Balga Peninsula promises significant advantages: it will be designed to accommodate large vessels including ocean-going container carriers. Construction of several terminals is projected, including container and oil terminals. A technical design specification for construction is currently under way; detailed terminal specialisation and storage facilities are under consideration. The estimated investment is 263 billion rubles, 75 billion of which will come from the national budget.

Ust-Luga oil handling terminal design launched

AK Transneft has begun the design process for facilities for unloading, storage and transhipment of oil products in Ust-Luga marine port (Leningrad region). The facilities are supposed to be built on the eastern beach of Luga Bay in the Finnish Gulf, to the north of Habalovka River. The terminal will accept oil from BTS-2 pipeline, which has been under construction since July 2009. Total investment is estimated as 95 billion rubles.

The first stage of the oil terminal is expected to start operations at the end of 2012. Annual capacity at this stage may reach 30 million tonnes with further expansion to 38 million tonnes in December 2013. The terminal berth will be able to handle vessels of up to 100,000 dwt.

ORDERS & DELIVERIES

Sovkomflot and TNK-BP consider joint construction of tanker fleet

Sovkomflot and TNK-BP have formed a joint working group to perform a feasibility study of construction of self-propelling tankers, barges and tow-boats at Russian shipping yards. The vessels would transport oil products on the Volga River. According to a TNK-BP media representative: “The working group agreed to consider various ways of construction of long length barges and tow-boats to work out an efficient programme of optimisation for the existing river transportation model, which may contribute to development of national ship-building”.

TNK-BP was founded in 2003 and is currently one of the world‘s largest private oil companies. The company’s production fields are located in West and East Siberia and Volga-Urals region. TNK-BP owns five refineries in Russia and Ukraine, a retail network of 1,400 petrol stations under BP and TNK brands.

Sovkomflot is a large shipping company, a world leader among oil and gas carriers and operates all over the world; it has representative offices, subsidiaries and crewing offices in Moscow, St Petersburg, Novorossiysk, Vladivostok, Odessa, Madrid, London and Limassol.

Ice-class tow-boat is launched in St Petersburg

Nevskaya Zastava, an ice-class tug designed by Engineering Ship- Building Centre OAO was launched by the Almaz shipyard in St Petersburg. The tug is intended for collection of spilled oil products in the St Petersburg area, for icebreaking duties near Neva water intake facilities, for fire fighting, including fires on vessels with high freeboards, and for clearing channels through ice. The vessel, which cost some 387 million rubles, will be operated by PILARN , the state company for prevention of accidental oil spills. It has a length of 41m, width 11.6m, board height 5.2m and a total engine capacity of 3,600 W.

Russia builds for Haugland Tankers

Haugland Tankers, a subsdiary of Bergen Tankers, placed orders for two bunkering vessels with Nevsky shipbuilding and repair yard. The first vessel, Oslo-Tank, a 850 dwt coastal bunkering tanker, was launched on 22 October 2009. Another vessel Bergen-Tank, is in the final stage of construction at Nevsky shipbuilding and repair yard. The tankers were designed by Skipskonsulent AS design bureau (Bergen, Norway) to Bureau Veritas class and are to fly the Norwegian flag. The vessel is intended for transportation and bunkering of light and heavy oil products with flash point over 600C.

New tanker for Kaliningrad

The bunker tanker Tarnika has been supplying IFO 380 at Kaliningrad for Lukoil since October 2009. Tarnika provided bunkering services to seven tankers at the oil terminal during one month. Total delivery exceeded 1,000 tonnes of IFO 380 fuel.

COMPANY NEWS

Transit to distribute SK diesel in Far East

Transit – OV extends diesel availability in the Far East

Transit-DV Trading House has become the exclusive distributor of SK Energy’s diesel oil in the Far East of Russia. SK Energy, based in Korea, is a world leader in diesel oil production. It occupies about 50% of the world market of base oil. Transit-DV Trading House had already delivered a batch of SK oil to Russia for a company located in Kamchatka in July, 2009.

FESCO reduces fuel consumption

Far-East Marine Shipping Company (lead company of FESCO Transport Group) has successfully introduced a new fuel consumption monitoring system providing significant fuel savings. The new fuel consumption monitoring system was installed on the Krasnogvardeets, a cargo vessel trading to Magadan. The monitoring system demonstrated that fuel consumption on that route can be reduced by 15%, to 22 tonnes/day, without changes in the schedule. New norms were applied to three other similar vessels providing liner services in the Far East in April. Altogether 440 tonnes of fuel were saved during seven months, from April to October 2009, (sea and lay-days were taken into account) due to new timecharter norms acceptance. The company looks forward to expanding its positive experience with the monitoring technology to other FEMSC vessels.

Tatnefteproduct-Bunker to expand

TNP Bunker (a member of Tatnefteproduct group) is looking to buy a tank barge during the winter navigation season 2009-10. The company is also considering expanding its existing oil storage facility and reconfiguring it for bunkering. The modernisation and repair of two bunkering vessels Vyatka17 and Sborschik-2 are also included in the company’s programme.

Infotech Flex reports 2009 growth

St Petersburg-based equipment suppliers Infotech Flex says its preliminary results show good growth. Despite a shrinking bunker services market in 2009, sales of bunkering hoses grew by 2.5 times against 2008, and the number of new customers increased by 11%. Igor Stepanenko, general director of Infotech Flex, said: “The financial crisis had a negative impact on world ports; bunkering services significantly shrank in Russia but supplies of high quality products increased. The major reason is the growing responsibility of bunkering companies for ecological and technological safety. They select more reliable and serviceable equipment.”