Underground Construction - November 2019 - 16

Midyear International Update
Russia & CIS

in northeast China and across the BeijingTianjin-Hebei region upon scheduled
completion in October 2020.
In South Asia, Indian natural gas
company H-Energy Pvt Ltd expects to start
its LNG import terminal at Jaigarh in the
fourth quarter of 2019, following delays
it blamed on monsoons and national
elections. The company is also building a
400-mile pipeline connecting Jaigarh, on
India's west coast, to Mangalore, which
is expected to be ready by 2023. The new
floating storage and regasification unit
(FSRU) at Jaigarh will have a capacity of 4
million tons per year of LNG.
Neighboring Pakistan also plans to
offer dozens of gas field concessions in the
coming year to address a fuel shortage, a
senior official told Reuters, with Islamabad
hoping a sharp drop in militant violence
and changes to exploration policy will
attract foreign investors. To encourage
development, the government also
plans to make its pipeline system more
accessible and affordable.
Pakistan's domestic gas output has
plateaued in the last five years, falling
to 1.46 trillion cubic feet in 2017/18,
from 1.51 Tcf in 2012-2013, according
to Petroleum Ministry reports. This has
led to severe gas shortages as Pakistan's
population, now at 208 million people, has
risen sharply over the same period, driving
fuel demand from industries and new
power plants higher.
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NOVEMBER 2019 | UConOnline.com

"The entire mechanism of how the
pipeline system is working today is being
is being re-looked at, to make it more
deregulated, make it more open access,"
said Nadeem Babar, head of Prime
Minister Imran Khan's Task Force on
Energy Reforms.
In Australia, Jemena said it has
commenced construction of the Atlas
Gas Pipeline, a 38-mile project that
will deliver natural gas earmarked for
domestic consumption from Queensland's
first domestic-only gas supply. Located
approximately 12 miles southwest of
Wandoan in Queensland, the Atlas project
will include an 8-inch, steel-coated, buried
gas pipeline and a compressor station. It
will connect gas from Senex Energy's Atlas
gas field to the East Coast gas market via
the Wallumbilla Gas Hub.
Jemena's executive general manager
of Gas Markets, Antoon Boey, said
construction and commissioning of the
Atlas project is expected to be complete
before the end of 2019.
"We are acutely aware that Australia
faces a gas supply crisis, and Jemena is
investing heavily in new gas transmission
infrastructure to bring new gas supplies
into the market. Moving gas from where
it is produced to the markets where it is
needed at the lowest possible cost and
doing so safely and reliably is of utmost
importance to Jemena," Boey said.

Russia has continued to defy U.S. pressure
and European efforts to reduce dependence
on its vast supply of natural gas. Stateowned Gazprom has gained a 36 percent
natural gas market share in Europe, and
its pipeline projects to extend that share
continue unabated.
By mid-June, some 60 percent of the
pipelaying for Gazprom's Nord Stream
2 - about 900 miles - was completed in the
Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany,
even as U.S. politicians threatened
sanctions and Denmark delayed approval
of a route through its territorial waters.
Pipelaying is currently underway in Finnish
waters, and onshore facilities are under
construction in Russia and Germany. In
Russia, compressor stations and welding
are nearly complete on the 544-mile
northern gas transmission corridor, which
will feed gas into Nord Stream 2.
Nord Stream 2, following the path of
Nord Stream, will be a twin natural gas
pipeline, with each of the lines spanning
764 miles from Russia to Germany, for
a total of 1,530 miles of pipe. Planned
capacity of the two strings of Nord Stream
2 is 55 Bcm of gas year.
Earlier this year, Serbia's Gastrans
invited binding bids to book capacity at a
planned section of Gazprom's TurkStream
pipeline. The planned 250-mile pipeline
through Serbia, which connects the country's natural gas transmission system to
those of Bulgaria and Hungary, is expected
to be completed by Dec. 15, with capacity
of 13.88 billion cubic meters a year.
While Russia's natural gas continues
to make strides with pipeline expansion,
crude oil exports fell to an 11-month low
due to oil contamination of the Druzhba
pipeline, which usually ships 1 MMbpd,
or 1 percent of global oil demand. Russia
expects to clean up the pipeline, which
was built in the 1960s and carries
Russian oil to Europe, including Germany,
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, within
four to six months.

Western Europe
The battle for market share between
natural gas and LNG in Europe continues
to favor lower-cost pipeline gas in Europe,
where a projected increase in LNG import
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