Rosneft, Beijing Gas to Form Russia CNG JV
Russian state-run oil giant Rosneft said November 29 it is to set up a joint venture with Chinese distributor, Beijing Gas, to develop a network of compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations.
The jv will be 55% owned by Rosneft, 45% by Beijing Gas. Both parties will build about 170 CNG stations in Russia, and will consider the option of using LNG as a motor fuel. Rosneft said that gas for the venture would be supplied by the Vankor oil and gas field, which started producing in 2009, in the north of the Krasnoyarsk region of eastern Siberia. It added that development of a CNG network in Russia is one of Rosneft's key retail priorities in Russia.
China has more natural gas vehicles (NGVs) than any other country at just over 6mn – representing about 23% of the world’s NGVs – well ahead of Europe’s largest market Italy (1mn NGVs) and also Russia.
Beijing Gas has a network of 22,000 km; more than 6mn customers; sales exceeding 10bn m3/yr; manages some 20 gas projects in China, and has experience of marketing to NGVs. In October 2018 Italy’s Snam agreed to cooperate with it on gas storage projects.
In June 2017 Rosneft completed its $1.1bn deal to sell a 20% stake in east Siberian upstream gas subsidiary, Verkhnechonskneftegaz, to Beijing Gas. A year earlier Rosneft sold a 15% stake in Vankorneft, operator of the Vankor field, to India’s ONGC Videsh for $1.268bn.