New charge: the government has approved the energy strategy until 2050
The government has approved the country's energy strategy until 2050. The document broadens the planning horizon and takes into account the challenges of today. It is expected that this will allow the oil, gas and other sectors to match the changes taking place in the world even more precisely. Izvestia investigated how ready the Russian energy industry is for transformations and which changes will be the most significant.
Expansion of production
Significant investments are required in modernizing enterprises, supporting the existing well fund, developing new oil and gas regions, LNG projects, gas chemical plants, renewable and hydrogen energy facilities, Tamara Safonova, associate professor at the Institute of Economics, Mathematics and Information Technology of the Presidential Academy, told Izvestia.
— The strategy will help attract investments in the industry. It defines development priorities in detail by segment. Special attention is paid to the development of human resources and the assessment of the personnel needs of the industry in the future until 2030. This can become a roadmap for Russian educational institutions and help in assessing the growing confirmed demand for industry specialists," she said.
In her opinion, in order to implement the strategy and ensure competitiveness, the Russian energy industry will need to expand the production of energy and oil and gas equipment, develop digital technologies, automated control and monitoring technologies, waste disposal technologies, synthesis, and organize the production of its own reagents and catalysts. It is the formation of a full cycle — from the production of equipment and components, monitoring, and maintenance to the production and sale of value—added products - that will allow for a synergistic effect for the state, regions, enterprises, and the public.
In general, the updated version of the strategy provides for longer-term planning and takes into account modern challenges. This will allow the oil, gas, coal sectors, the electric power industry, energy engineering and related transport systems to better adapt to global changes.
The set of measures included in the strategy is focused on the accelerated development of oil and gas processing, active promotion of the regional gasification program, and providing domestic consumers with a sufficient volume of petroleum products at affordable prices.
The Russian energy industry is in a difficult situation, Fyodor Sidorov, a private investor and founder of the School of Practical Investment, said in an interview with Izvestia.
— On the one hand, the country has a huge resource potential and infrastructure that allows exporting energy resources in large volumes. On the other hand, the system is not well adapted to the new global realities: carbon regulation, the turn of global energy towards low-carbon sources and the growth of domestic demand for energy efficiency. There is a willingness to transform at the level of declarations, but not yet at the level of systemic reforms. The key problem is institutional inertia and the dominance of export—raw materials logic," the expert believes.
The 2050 strategy, according to him, promises to focus on the development of LNG, expanding its presence in Asian markets, modernizing the fuel and energy sector, taking into account digitalization and decarbonization, as well as the development of new types of energy — hydrogen and nuclear. If all this is implemented, then the most significant transformation will be diversification — in terms of markets, sources, and technologies. However, it is important to understand that this is a long-term vector, not a rapid transformation.
The essence of the changes
The adopted document describes the main forecasts on all key energy issues. The strategy takes into account the projected global growth in energy demand by 20%. The document places a special emphasis on minimizing the negative impact of the energy industry on the environment.
In particular, the strategy provides for an increase in the share of nuclear energy in the total electricity generation structure to 25%, an active expansion of capacities in the renewable energy segment, the introduction of progressive environmental standards, as well as measures to stimulate energy conservation.
According to the strategy, global oil demand will continue to increase at least until 2035. At the same time, the main drivers of this growth are the increase in freight and passenger traffic, as well as the transformation of the fleet — the active introduction of electric vehicles and increasing the efficiency of traditional internal combustion engines.
At the same time, it is planned to work out the issue of organizing gas exports from independent producers through a single pipeline system. The document also provides for the formation of fair and economically justified gas prices, as well as tariffs for its transportation.
As for the volume of electricity production in Russia, by the middle of the century, this figure may reach 1.64 trillion kWh. This is the "target" development scenario, which is considered as the main one and is focused on the active development of the fuel and energy complex. In addition, the document takes into account the "inertial" scenario, which provides for maintaining the existing pace without large-scale investments in the modernization of the industry. In this case, the volume of generation could reach 1.59 trillion kWh by 2050.
In addition, under the target scenario, coal production in the country will grow by 20.8% by 2030, reaching 530.1 million tons, while exports will increase by 25% to 266.7 million tons. In fact, in 2023, the volume of coal production in Russia amounted to 438.7 million tons. The forecast for 2036 provides for a 12.3% increase in production to 595.2 million tons, and by 2050 a further 11.2% increase is expected, to 662 million tons. The energy strategy also provides for an increase in the share of coal produced by open-pit mining: if in 2023 this figure was 77.7%, then by 2050 it should rise to 82-85%. In addition, the importance of Eastern Siberia and the Far East in the coal mining industry is increasing.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Energy, but no response had been received at the time of publication.
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