The head of Rosneft Sechin proposes to export more oil products to the east at the expense of coal

The head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, proposed canceling the approved priorities for exporting coal from four regions to the east and clearing the way for high value-added products, primarily for petroleum products. Noting the decline in their export to the east, the top manager is in favor of introducing a priority for the products of domestic refineries. Market participants specify that an even more acute situation for oil cargo has developed in the southern direction. And analysts note that changing the method of queuing will not solve the problem – it is necessary to expand the infrastructure, and before that, it is possible to give priority to individual oil routes without changing the general order.

Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin in July drew the attention of President Vladimir Putin to the problem of reducing the supply of oil cargo by rail in the east, Kommersant sources familiar with the appeal say.

In it, Mr. Sechin recalls that the president instructed Russian Railways to ensure priority shipment of coal to the east from Kuzbass, Buryatia, Khakassia and Tuva, while coal at the Eastern landfill grew by 8.5% in the first quarter and took 70% in the total volume of traffic. At the same time, the volume of transportation of goods “with high gross value added and the share of tax deductions to the federal budget was not increased, and in some cases was reduced,” Kommersant’s interlocutors quoted Mr. Sechin as saying.

In particular, the shipment of coal affects the transportation of oil cargo, the volume of which in the east direction is about 10% of the volume of transportation of coal, but at the same time, in terms of fiscal deductions, the oil industry exceeds the coal industry by 47 times.

According to the results of the first quarter, the volume of delivery of bulk oil cargoes to the east fell by 9.2%.

The top manager asks the president to instruct Russian Railways to set a higher priority for all cargo produced at Russian refineries in relation to other bulk cargo, and instruct the government to adopt a new methodology for access to railway limiting infrastructure. According to the head of Rosneft, it should be based on the principle of maximizing the revenues of the budget system of the Russian Federation, excluding the priority of coal enterprises in relation to industries with high added value, the priority of all cargo produced at Russian enterprises with a continuous production process, including oil loading, petrochemicals, petroleum coke, sulfur, LPG and so on, as well as maintaining employment in the narrow-profile regions of the Russian Federation “taking into account the index of social tension in these regions.”

The President instructed First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov to consider the proposals. The secretariat of Mr. Belousov did not give prompt comments. Rosneft did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

Oilmen have repeatedly complained about the problem in coordinating requests for the shipment of fuel to the east. Back in March, the head of Gazprom Neft, Alexander Dyukov, proposed increasing the priority of its transportation, fearing that the situation could lead to a decrease in fuel output (see “Kommersant” dated March 28). The Ministry of Energy proposed to transfer oil products supplied to the Far East both in domestic and export traffic from the fifth category of priority to the fourth (which still does not allow oil products to travel before export coal from four regions on behalf of the president).

Russian Railways declined to comment. However, earlier the monopoly estimated that the return of all coal, which is exported from four regions on behalf of the president, to the sixth priority category common for coal will allow for an additional export of about 2 million tons of expensive cargo, “mainly oil products (0.8 million tons) and ferrous metals (1 million tons), fertilizers, grain”. This, according to the company, will increase the contribution to the Russian economy by 25 billion rubles, and the income of Russian Railways itself by 1 billion rubles. (see “Kommersant” dated May 15).

Problems with excessive loading of the Russian Railways network are widespread, the problem is especially acute at the eastern and southern ranges, says Maxim Dyachenko, managing partner of Petroleum Trading. Fuel production and exports are at record levels, and logistics have changed dramatically as a result of the sanctions. Even changing the priority will not completely solve the problem, Mr. Dyachenko believes: it is necessary to build additional infrastructure.

Kommersant’s interlocutor in the industry says that in the first half of the year, the number of abandoned loaded trains on the network increased sharply – by 7%, to 53.8 thousand cars. Most of them are on the Far Eastern (Far Eastern Railway) and North Caucasian (SKZhD) railways (30% and 29%, respectively).

Moreover, for oil cargo, the increase in the number of abandoned loaded trains was 15% on the Far Eastern Railway and 129% on the North Caucasus Railway. Thus, the most negative dynamics is observed not in the Far East, but in the south – on the approaches to the ports. On August 22, the Ministry of Energy reported that it sees difficulties with the rhythm of fuel supplies to the south due to the high workload of the railway during the tourist season. But JSC Russian Railways said that the problem was the idle time of tanks waiting to be unloaded by the consignees: at some terminals of the Southern Federal District, the number of tanks exceeds the average unloading by more than ten times.

“The situation with oil cargoes, in general, reflects a systemic crisis within the monopoly,” says a Kommersant source in the oil industry, emphasizing both traction and traffic planning as a key problem. networks”.

Deprioritization of coal with one stroke of the pen does not look feasible, believes Mikhail Burmistrov, head of Infoline-Analytics, and the development of a new methodology will take months. A change in priority leads to a disruption in the routing of shipments, which is especially important for coal, where standard and innovative gondola cars are used. At the same time, the proposals of the head of Rosneft are quite logical, especially considering that from a production point of view, the oil sector has more bottlenecks than coal, and the capacity of the tank farm at the refinery does not allow for long-term storage. But continuous production, he recalls, is not only refineries, but also metallurgy, the chemical industry, etc. According to the expert, when transporting petroleum products for export, a better solution would be to coordinate with Russian Railways the priority for certain routes, for example, through the port Kozmino.

Natalya Skorlygina, Dmitry Kozlov