MOSCOW (Reuters) – Kazrosgaz, a joint venture between Russia’s Gazprom and Kazakhstan’s KazMunayGas, has suspended liquefied petroleum gas production and supplies from Russia’s Orenburg gas processing plant this year due to EU sanctions on imports of Russian propane and propane-butane, three industry sources said on Tuesday.
Kazrosgaz supplies Kazakhstan’s raw natural gas from the Karachaganak field to the Orenburg gas processing plant in Russia. The company normally sells the LPG that is produced to Europe via trading firms.
The European Union imposed a ban on imports of Russian propane and propane-butane from December 19 last year. That disrupted the supplies, the sources said.
According to the sources, the Orenburg plant has not made or exported any LPG produced from Kazakh gas so far this year.
Last year, Kazrosgaz sold about 15,000 metric tons of LPG per month to Afghanistan, Poland and Latvia.
“Volumes are not being produced, there is no final decision on further operations,” one of the sources familiar with the matter said.
Media representatives for Kazrosgaz, the Kazakh Ministry of Energy and Gazprom did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
In January, due to EU sanctions, propane tanks from major LPG producer Tengizchevroil were detained at the Belarusian-Polish border due to a protracted procedure for checking the origin of the cargo by Polish customs.
(Reporting by Reuters. Editing by Mark Potter)
