MOSCOW (MRC) -- Rosneft Oil Company and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan (METI) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on carbon management, said the company.
The document is signed to continue the cooperation between the Company and METI within the framework of the Joint Coordinating Committee and provides for the development of the parties’ interaction to implement lower-carbon projects with the participation of Rosneft and Japanese companies, as well as the exchange of experience and technological solutions in promising areas.
In particular, the parties plan to assess the new lower-carbon technologies potential aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to improve the energy efficiency of businesses, including drilling and oilfield services.
Rosneft and METI will consider the prospects of new projects involving the use of carbon capture, utilisation and storage, the turnover of compensatory carbon quotas and the development of advanced types of fuel, including hydrogen and ammonia.
The parties have a successful experience of cooperation. During the 5th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in 2019, a memorandum was signed on the establishment of the Joint Coordination Committee to develop strategic cooperation in the energy sector and implement new joint projects. The first meeting of the Committee was held on 23 January 2020.
Rosneft has been developing cooperation with Japan’s partners for many years. The Company is a Sakhalin-1 partner together with a pool of foreign companies, including Japan’s SODECO. The Government of Japan, JAPEX, ITOCHU Corporation, Marubeni Corporation, INPEX CORPORATION are the shareholders of SODECO. Furthermore, Rosneft supplies crude oil and petroleum products to Japan annually.
Rosneft planned to build an oil refining and petrochemical complex in the Primorsky Territory in two stages - oil refining with a capacity of 12 m tonnes per year and petrochemicals with a capacity of 3.4 m tonnes per year.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
Rosneft is recognised as the leading Russian oil and gas producer in a number of international ESG ratings, including Refinitiv and Bloomberg. In April 2021, the international agency Sustainalytics twice improved the Company’s position in its rating. With a score of 33.9, Rosneft became the best among Russian oil and gas companies.
MRC