Argus Oil Products Russia and CIS 2019 brings together leading industry representatives
The Argus Oil Products Russia and CIS 2019 conference was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow on October 10-11.
This is a key event for oil product market participants. This year’s conference brought together leading oil producers, importers, exporters, trading firms and carriers for the 12th time. It was attended by more than 150 participants from 20 countries.
Russia’s Gazpromneft was the general partner of the conference, which was also supported by companies such as PTC Holding, Quest Group and Atem Group.
The event began with a session on the outlook for oil refining.
Anton Rubtsov, who heads the oil and gas processing department at Russia’s ministry of energy, gave an overview of the current status and prospects for the Russian oil refining industry. Rubtsov noted the key objectives set by the government in order to develop the industry.
“Stiff competition with partners from the Eurasian Economic Union requires Russian producers to ensure high performance,” he said. “Accordingly, both the government and business are interested in completing the investment processes as soon as possible and increasing refinery yield to achieve higher product value per barrel processed.”
The situation in the global oil products market was covered in a report by Argus vice-president for business development William Harwood.
Mikhail Antonov, the head of Gazpromneft’s oil refining directorate, spoke about A Modern Refinery: Success Criteria and Challenges of the Times. In his presentation, Antonov highlighted the stages involved in upgrades at Gazpromneft refineries and new areas of development in the petrochemical industry, as well as issues related to implementing other development programmes. Antonov pointed out that the implementation of development programmes would boost gasoline production by 20pc, kerosine by 60pc and diesel by 40pc. The company plans to completely stop producing fuel oil.
As part of the conference’s second session, a round table was held to discuss tax regulation. The participants, who included representatives from the Russian anti-monopoly watchdog FAS, as well as Sibur, Lukoil and others, discussed the first results of Russia’s tax manoeuvre, possible adjustments and the prospects for the Russian oil product market under such regulations.
The next session was dedicated to the production of catalysts in Russia. Gazpromneft catalytic systems deputy general director Alexander Zaitsev spoke about the production of modern catalytic systems, using a plant in Omsk as an example.
Current market issues related to the IMO 2020 marine fuel sulphur cap were discussed during the final sessions of the conference. Participants were interested in the future of bunkering, the supply and demand balance in the market for heavy and light oil products, and possible changes in the fuel oil market.
Delegates visited Gazpromneft’s Moscow refinery on the final day of the conference. They were able to see the first results of recent upgrades, in particular the new Euro+ combined oil refining unit, which will replace the previous generation of refining units to increase output of key products and further reduce the facility’s environmental impact.