MOSCOW: Russian oil producer Tatneft plans to invest 250 billion roubles ($4.2 billion) in constructing a new gas chemical plant to diversify into new, higher profit businesses, Chief Executive Nail Maganov told Reuters. Tatneft runs the TANEKO oil refining complex in its home region of Tatarstan in Russia’s Volga-Urals region some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) east of Moscow. “The company is currently studying possible options of producing high-margin chemical products… and therefore plans to start building a gas chemical complex with approximate investments of 250 billion roubles,” Maganov said in emailed answers to Reuters questions. Maganov did not provide further details. Tatneft, which produces oil mostly from depleted fields in the Russian region of Tatarstan, while also focusing on high-viscosity crude, is pumping around 1 billion cubic metres of gas per year.
Tatneft plans to launch the second stage at its TANEKO refinery next year, boosting primary refining capacity to 12 million tonnes from 7.8 million tonnes planned for this year. Maganov, a Tatneft oil veteran, said that the company plans to produce around 29 million tonnes of oil this year (580,000 barrels per day), slightly up from last year but below the initially planned 29.3 million tonnes due to the of the global oil cut deal. Maganov also said his company envisages an oil price of $40 per barrel in its business plan for the next 2-3 years, citing shale oil development in the United States that will cap a recovery in prices. By 2025, Tatneft plans to produce 30.3 million tonnes of oil per year, Maganov said in the email.
