Rosneft expanding into fast-growing markets
MOSCOW, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Russian state oil company Rosneft and Indonesian state energy company Pertamina have agreed a refinery joint venture in the Southeast Asian country, which may also get stakes in upstream projects in Russia, Rosneft said on Wednesday.
Pertamina is seeking overseas producing energy assets as Indonesia’s domestic oil output has been declining since the early 1980s. The company is also developing domestic processing facilities to cut fuel imports.
Indonesia, which rejoined OPEC last year, consumes 1.6 million barrels per day (b/d) and produces around 0.85 million b/d, according to a review conducted by BP.
Rosneft, which is expected to get a 45 percent stake in the 300,000 barrels-per-day refinery, wants to expand abroad, especially in a region dominated by OPEC producers from the Gulf.
The new Tuban refinery will have a crude processing capacity of 300,000 b/d and is targeted for completion in 2021.
Rosneft said that Pertamina could also get up to 20 per cent in the offshore Northern Chayvo project off Russia’s Pacific island of Sakhalin and up to 37.5 per cent in the onshore Russkoye field in Siberia.
As well as its first venture with Russia, Pertamina is looking at energy projects in Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Gabon, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, adding to its overseas assets in Malaysia, Algeria and Iraq.
Pertamina plans to upgrade four of its existing seven refineries, and develop at least two new oil processing plants by 2023, more than doubling its domestic capacity to 2.3 million b/d from 1 million b/d currently.
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova in MOSCOW, Seng Li Peng in SINGAPORE and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Christian Lowe and Louise Heavens)
