Conference

On December 10–11, 2009 LPG market players met on the 5th International Conference "Liquefied gas exports from Russia and other CIS countries" to discuss key industry trends, impact of public policies on its development and immediate prospects of market liberalization. Organizer - infor-media Russia.

Elena Kotelkina, Head of department for the energy sector, Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service, emphasized on the priority of non-discriminatory access. Tamara Kandelaki, CEO, InfoTEK-Consult, and Sergey Sitnikov, Senior lawyer, Baker & McKenzie, also took part in the discussion on state regulation revolution of the industry. Prospects and features of Russian marine terminals construction for LPG export were reflected in Roman Mezhlumyan’s presentation, Head of international project monitoring department, Agency for sea and river transport of Russian Federation. Oleg Tolochkin, Head of project management consulting, Service – VMF, told about particularity of the marine transportation and LPG loading problems in the Arctic seas. The priority task was identified development of the tanker fleet and shipbuilding, solving problems of NSR, creation of year-round port on the Yamal Peninsula and cooperation problems solving. Denis Pchelintsev, Executive vice-president, NGT-Management, told about commercial and investment opportunities offered by the processing and utilization of associated petroleum gas. Vitaliy Bugachev, Head of pricing and marketing analysis, Gazenergoset, shared views on LPG market development and forecasts of liquefied gas value.

Participants of the conference knew from the presentation of Aleksandra Zubacheva, Head of oil products department, PETROMARKET, about the most significant gas processing projects which could affect liquefied hydrocarbon gases in Russia till 2020. Mrs. Zubacheva ranked LUKOIL's exploitation of mineral deposits of the Caspian shelf, development of Kovykta gas condensate field, a number of projects for associated gas utilization in Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district, expansion of production facilities in Purovsky Plant JSC Novatek and others. As explained Mrs. Zubacheva, demand for liquefied hydrocarbon gases would be increased to 2020 year, would be more than twofold – till 7, 8 million of tones in a year.

Debates were heated in the session devoted to topical issues liquefied gas transportation. Boris Ratchevsky, General Director, NefteGazTop, informed about current state of the LPG shipping market. Alevtina Kirillova, Guild of Freight Forwarders, Olga Galkina, SpetsTransGarant, and Aleksey Grechin, Transcontainer, discussedmechanisms of LPG transportation, pricing and possible methods to reduce costs, innovative technologies and ways to ensure the safety of the liquefied hydrocarbon gases transportation.

Second day of the conference was devoted to international LPG trade. An overview of the European market made Milana Chelpanova, Finam.ru. Current trends in the Polish LPG market, described in his report Michael Sechkovsky, Trader, Unimot Express. CEO of Bell holding corp. Aron Bukovec spoke about LPG market in Southern Europe.

President of the Ukraine LPG Association Sergey Piven paid attention to the production and consumption of LPG in Ukraine, pricing policies and factors contributing to the development of LPG market in the region. Features of LPG trade in the Baltics and Finland were examined in the speech of Augusts Iesalnieks, Business Development Director, Latvijas propane gaze SIA.

In summary during two days of the conference participants did manage to sum up the results of the year, prospects of the next, identify key problems of LPG export and its’ solutions, identify areas of industry development and the possibility of anti-crisis program realization.

An additional point is that the audience was offered by a detailed overview of Russia and international LPG market. And certainly organizer of the conference provided participants with opportunities for communication, exchange of ideas and professional experience.