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Rosneft CEO tells journalists about immediate plans

Russia’s oil major Rosneft plans to produce 206 million tons of oil in 2013
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, May 14 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s oil major Rosneft plans to produce 206 million tons of oil in 2013.

“We are updating our forecasts for 2013, but I think it will be a figure of about 206 million tons,” Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin told journalists on Tuesday.

He pledged that an oil refinery in Tuapse will be commissioned in June 2013. “There are no delays, we will commission it in June,” he said. In his words, the company is currently checking equipment for pre-industrial operation. He admitted certain delays in the deliveries of equipment. “You know, there is technologically sophisticated equipment, huge units. We even had to do some addition construction works,” he noted.

Sechin also pledged that the company will equip all its filling stations in Sochi to offer natural gas as a motor fuel. “All Rosneft filling stations in Sochi will be equipped to offer natural gas as motor fuel,” he said after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin dedicated to the problems of the use of natural gas as a fuel for motor vehicles.

Rosnfet, he said, operates Russia’s biggest chain of about 2,500 filling stations, which can be fitted to offer gas-based fuels. But such efforts, in his words, “require comprehensive support.” Thus, he said, such measures may include “stimulating regimes and allocating land plots for filling stations in regions.”

“Rosneft is ready to review its investment program in case such support is offered and to allocate more than 60 billion roubles to build about 1,000 gas stations at the existing or new filling stations,” he said and added that “it is an interesting business.”

According to the Rosneft CEO, the company has no plans to finance the construction of a pipe to China. “We plan to pay economically feasible transport fees,” he stressed. “It is not our task” to finance the construction of a pipeline, he noted. “Our task is to pay transport fees and see to it that tariffs are economically attractive.”

Sechin also said that after the meeting, the president asked the government and the emergencies ministry to draft amendments to the legal base to simplify procedures for the establishment of gas stations. Current laws have considerable restrictions on placing gas equipment at filling stations, although “modern technologies make it possible to do it in a safe regime,” he noted. “The emergencies ministry and the government have been instructed to look at using the world standards [concerning equipping filling stations with gas equipment].”

“We believe such resolutions will soon be passed,” Sechin stressed.

In this connection, he asked the president to grant access to the national gas transportation system in order to hook up is gas filling stations.

“We want to hook up gas filling station and complexes and equipment for the production of gas fuels to the network of gas mains,” Sechin told journalists on Tuesday.

According to Sechin, no company is currently capable to duly organize this work, since there are only about 230 gas stations across Russia, of which only 20 percent are operating. “For instance, there are four commercial gas stations in Moscow,” he added. That is why, in his words, the president has turned his attention to this problem.

“If we want competition, if we want this market to develop, we should have possibilities to supply enough of fuel to mobile gas filling stations,” he stressed. “Of course, it will influence prices.”