Kapitonov: Gazprom faced the greatest challenges in 30 years, but there are growth points

MOSCOW, February 17 – RIA Novosti. Gazprom is currently facing the biggest challenges in its 30-year history, but after a significant drop in exports to European countries, the company has other growth points for the business – growth prospects for the gas industry in Russia and the rise Energy Transition Project Center and ESG Skoltech analyst Sergey Kapitonov said. It supplies new markets, especially Central and South Asian countries, he told RIA Novosti.

“At the moment Gazprom is facing the greatest challenges in its history because before that we have seen long-term cooperation with Europe, everything has developed gradually and deliveries have increased every year. At the moment – for political and other reasons – the European market is no longer for Gazprom’s business,” said the Analyst. states that it will not be a growth point.

At the same time, Kapitonov believes that the company is “good financially” and in terms of key factors – the size of the reserves – Gazprom looks confident. The company is the leader of the domestic market, the largest for the company and it is worth paying attention to the growth prospects of the gas industry, for example, in areas such as gasification, including in coal-producing regions, that is, the solution of environmental problems, the agency’s interlocutor believes.

The analyst sees certain prospects in the development of natural gas motor fuel, the use of LNG to refuel tankers in the Arctic region, and the use of small-tonnage LNG in the domestic market, for example, to solve energy problems in isolated villages. Unified gas supply network of Russia. Thanks to these measures, gas consumption in the domestic market can increase by approximately 30 billion cubic meters per year and reach approximately 510 billion cubic meters.

“The next point is new markets… You can create alternatives (to the European market – ed.), but you have to understand that these alternatives will not appear tomorrow, in 2025,” Kapitonov emphasizes. Among the potential markets, he counts China, South and Central Asia and the CIS countries.

Now the gas is supplied to China via the Siberia Power gas pipeline, which is expected to reach a design capacity of 38 billion cubic meters per year by 2025. Also at the end of January, Russia and China signed an agreement on the supply of 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year via the “Far East” route. In addition, a project is being worked on for the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, through which it will be possible to pump about 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

The expert adds that by the 2030s, China may demand up to 100 billion cubic meters, but it is premature to expect that China is “not omnivorous” and will be like the European market in terms of scale.

Also, Kapitonov believes that Russian gas can be supplied to South Asian markets, mainly Pakistan and India, where it is possible to build a gas pipeline system. Now, he recalls, negotiations with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are ongoing: the Central Asia-Central gas pipeline, created during the Soviet era, currently runs through “underloaded and undemanded” territory.

“Potentially, this system could be deployed in reverse mode so that Russian gas enters the territory of Central Asian countries and then is transmitted through them, for example, to the South Asian markets,” the analyst says.

However, this requires “geopolitical studies and serious investments” for the construction of gas pipelines extending from Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. The expert estimates that 40 billion cubic meters of Russian gas could potentially be demanded in these markets.

“Probably, the third pillar is the CIS. Some niche operations are possible there – not in large volumes, but some kind of currency operations … are possible within some limited limits, while reducing the gas balance of Central Asian countries. … for example, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, ‘ adds Kapitonov.

Also, according to the analyst, the possibility of strategically developing LNG projects and producing new low-carbon energy carriers is important for the company. Now Gazprom operates the only LNG plant in Sakhalin and has a small-tonnage plant in the area of ​​the Portovaya compressor station in the Baltic, and a project to build a gas chemical complex in Ust-Luga is also being implemented.

As for low-carbon technologies, Gazprom, for example, has a “quite unique” hydrogen production technology – methane pyrolysis, where the byproduct is pure carbon, not CO2. The analyst states that this hydrogen can be demanded in any market, including China, Korea, India.