The GKZ called the key risk for oil, gas and coal in Russia

MOSCOW, 11 Oct — PRIME. The key risk for the oil, gas and coal production industries in Russia may be the transport component, and not, for example, the technological one, said Igor Shpurov, general director of the State Commission on Mineral Reserves (GKZ).

“Frankly speaking, I see much more problems and much more risks today, not so much in reserves, but in infrastructure and logistics, transport corridors… For example, import substitution is important in coal mining, there are risks in technology, but a much greater risk is the transport component, with the supply of coal, which in principle stops the entire development of the coal industry. From the point of view of, for example, the gas industry, the oil industry, this is again the development of transport corridors,” he said at the plenary session of the scientific and practical conference “Territory of Energy Dialogue” .

Thus, according to Shpurov, in the oil and gas industry there is already 85-90% of dependence on Western technologies, Russian companies have either reoriented to other markets, or began to use technologies that have begun to be reproduced in Russia. However, this does not apply to the shelf, the general director emphasized.

The head of the GKZ cited Novatek as an example, which manages to effectively resolve these issues. He recalled that the company has begun building floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in Murmansk. As for other risks associated with restricting access to technology, “by and large, at the current moment, in the short term, we don’t see any particular risks … this is in relation to oil and gas resources, of course, in relation to solid minerals, the situation is slightly different,” he added .