Oil exports from Russia to rise in 2016, supplies from refineries may fall to 248 mln tonnes - Transneft
MOSCOW. June 24 (Interfax) - The trend of increasing oil exports from Russia will continue this year, director of Transneft's department for planning and calculating cargo flows Igor Katsal said at Argus's conference "Russian Oil Market 2016".
"In 2015, the oil market turned to the opposite side for the first time in many years. We had supplies to domestic refineries fall by about 14 million tonnes, and export volumes rose by about the same 14 million tonnes," he said.
"We, on the basis of the applications of oil companies, their forecasts and plans, formulated our own budgets, based on the same level of exports in 2016 as in 2015. But now we are seeing that in 2016 oil exports are slowly, slowly exceeding the figures for 2015 exports, for now insignificantly, for now by 4.5 million-5 million tonnes in H1. Nevertheless this trend will be maintained," he said.
According to the Central Dispatching Department of the Fuel and Energy Complex (CDU TEK), in 2015 oil exports from Russia to non-CIS countries amounted to 210.8 million tonnes. Transneft at the start of 2016 said that it expected a fall in oil exports by 6.5% to 194.2 million tonnes. Later the company said that exports will remain level with 2015.
Oil supplies to Russian oil refineries via Transneft's system may fall slightly in 2016.
"We are reaching a level of supplies to the domestic market of about 248 million tonnes via the Transneft system," Katsal told Interfax.
According to the CDU TEK, oil supplies to the domestic market via Transneft's system in 2015 amounted to 250.2 million tonnes. So, in 2016 they may fall by about 0.8%.