a Critical situation on the world oil market when supply exceeds demand so that fuel stocks have nowhere to store, forced Russian officials to think about creating a strategic storage of liquid hydrocarbons. There will be set aside reserves of “black gold” during a collapse of quotations of raw materials and put it up for sale in the period of the oil boom. According to sources, a number of news agencies, the energy Ministry asked the companies having the experience of creating the vaults of the gas, to submit proposals for the organization of petroleum reserve bases – similar to those that long have American and Asian producers of “black gold”. According to experts, construction of bunkers, where you can leave up to 10-20% of annual oil production, will take at least 3-5 years. And will this idea in tens of billions of dollars, the sources of which are not yet clear.
the Idea of creation in Russia of strategic storage of oil resources emerged from representatives of the mining industry in March, after the deal between OPEC members+ involving the extension of the restrictive quotas on the production of raw materials, was on the verge of collapse. Oil prices then fell by half — from $50 to $25 per barrel, and recover them to the best promises to occur towards the end of the year.
As reported close to the energy Ministry sources, the Ministry noted that in the conditions of strict quarantine measures for Russia has sharply increased the strategic importance of oil storage tanks. Because at the present time in a more advantageous position were the countries where such reserve base is well developed: it is the United States, as well as a number of middle Eastern and Asian States.
For the past two months, mining companies almost to the eyeballs filled the underground tanks and the cost of freight of tankers increased by several orders of magnitude. In particular, the hire marine carriers from Saudi Arabia to China have risen by 700%. According to representatives of the industry, the owners of mobile and stationary bins began to slowly pour the raw material into the sea to free up tanks for new comers to pay for the storage of oil.
While the situation on the global oil market has not fundamentally improved since the beginning of may after working the new agreement, OPEC+, oil production in the world decreased by 10-11 million barrels per day, and consumption of raw materials fell twice.
Note that in Russia had a strategic storage of crude oil was not. Our companies have storage tanks for raw materials, and even fairly large, but they have a purely technological purpose. They are part of the infrastructure of the oil companies, refineries or oil pipeline monopoly, and serve as a kind of transit point for raw materials. The fact that the oil industry in Russia Rabe��AET in a continuous cycle, which does not provide for long-term storage of oil. Accordingly, the main domestic “storage” are cisterns and tankers, in which it is transported, plus the oil pipelines.
According to the Director of sales office “BCS” Vyacheslav Abramov, having the longest trunk pipeline system, domestic companies can accumulate them just over 70 million barrels. That’s less than a week’s production. Another 1.5 million “barrels” can be stored in rail tank cars, but to solve a common problem of oversaturation of the market a little.
According to the Director of the national energy Institute Sergey Pravosudov, our primary industries have always relied on transport, but not the warehouse component. “What sense was to build a strategic reserve storage? Such tasks are included in the interests of the state, but the producers are much more profitable to produce and directly sell the goods. Its storage will have to spend additional financial resources”, — the expert believes.
In the US, the creation of underground oil storage facilities was caused by “commodity fever” of the 1970-ies. Washington then directly faced the threat of shortage of hydrocarbons, explains doctor of technical Sciences, Professor PFUR Vladimir Tetelmin. Really the creation of these stores today? New netbouncer can be constructed on the exhausted deposits, which in our country quite a lot. “However, to maintain stable operation of required tactical, but not strategic storage. The mining industry has always been prompt extraction of energy resources and their export sales. Investing in similar projects in the conditions of economic imbalance private business, which he hopes to help States, will not be profitable. Domestic strategic reserves of raw materials are the mines themselves,” says Titelman.
According to his estimates, for the construction of repositories, similar to the U.S. strategic need of the state financial resources, calculated in tens of billions of dollars, which are unlikely to easily find in the current economic downturn. In addition, building such facilities for extended periods of time (from one year to five years), and during this time the current critical situation in the oil market, according to our interlocutor, may lose its relevance – especially when the rise in oil prices.
Top 5 world’s largest storage capacity (in million barrels):
1. Cushing USA 82
2. Yeosu South Korea 69,7
3. Louisiana USA 67
4. Manosque France 63
5. Geojedo, South Korea 47,5
