Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov on COVID-19 Counteraction Program
Dear colleagues, partners and customers!
Dear friends!
We are all going through a difficult period. Due to the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19, the usual course of things around the world has been disrupted. Residents of many countries, the healthcare system and the global economy as a whole are going through a serious test.
In these unprecedented conditions, Gazprom Neft’s main priorities are protecting employees, partners and customers from the spread of the virus, ensuring the continuity of all production processes, maintaining financial stability and continuing the development of the company.
On measures to protect Gazprom Neft from COVID-19
Our company has deployed a comprehensive system of protection against COVID-19, which is based on identifying key risks and setting barriers to the spread of the virus. The main element of this system, which was called “Antivirus”, was the mass testing of coronavirus employees involved in ensuring continuous production. At the first stage, in all industrial regions of activity more than 50% of almost 80 thousandthcompany team. We will regularly repeat this procedure and expand the number of employees involved in it. Mass testing reveals patients without external symptoms, allows timely measures to be taken to isolate and treat the infected, and to identify the entire contact group. Testing results are important not only for the company, but also for the regions of our activity, since they form a more complete picture of the incidence and make it possible to more effectively fight the virus.
Special precautions are taken at oil fields and refineries. Their continuous work is important not only for the regions, but also for the entire Russian economy. Our shift workers remained at their labor posts for 90 days, and we paid advances to those who had to replace them as planned. Today, nobody can get to the company’s remote oil production facilities without going through the buffer terminals, where doctors must make sure that the person is healthy. The industrial enterprises also organized enhanced medical control, employees are provided with personal protective equipment. Schemes of differentiation of flows on checkpoints and contactless transfer of shifts are applied. All industrial facilities and Gazprom Neft offices regularly disinfect rooms, use bactericidal recirculators, air quality is being monitored. At the entrance to enterprises and offices, temperature is measured non-contact.
Measures to protect against the virus are also being taken at our gas stations – employees work in protective equipment, stations are regularly disinfected, and markups have been made in trading floors to maintain social distance.
All company employees who can perform official duties from home are remotely transferred. Our IT service has increased corporate email throughput and created additional capacity for tens of thousands of remote connections. To inform employees about events in the life of the company, we use a special digital news service called Mobile Ribbon.
About the company’s contribution to the fight against the spread of the virus
In parallel with the COVID-19 counteraction system within the company, we are starting to supply medical protective equipment to hospitals and polyclinics in our main industrial regions: Yamal, the Khanty-Mansiysk District, the Omsk, Tomsk, Orenburg and Yaroslavl Regions, as well as St. Petersburg. More than 1.2 million masks and respirators, tens of thousands of gloves, protective shields and glasses, professional protective suits and antiseptics will be sent to doctors who daily expose themselves to the danger of infection.
Gazprom Neft promptly launched the production of disinfectant solutions, using the technologies recommended by the World Health Organization. We will use these solutions at the enterprises of the group and supply them to socially significant objects in the regions of activity.
Our company began to refuel the medical services of the Siberian cities of Omsk, Noyabrsk and Muravlenko for free. For small businesses, agricultural enterprises, taxi fleets and a number of other categories of corporate clients, we temporarily made the “Deferred payment” service free of charge. Gazprom Neft also joined the action # we together and has already provided more than 1000 cards for free refueling at our gas stations to volunteers who help the elderly. And EMERCOM employees and doctors, to whom we are all grateful today for truly heroic work, can bring free coffee with them to any gas station of the Gazpromneft network.
About the situation in the oil market
Separately, I want to say about the situation in the oil market. It is already obvious that the spread of coronavirus has caused serious damage to the Russian and global economies.Including the oil industry. When entire countries go to quarantine, there is a noticeable decrease in demand for hydrocarbons and their processed products. And if we talk about prices, then a significant role is played by the psychology of the market, which always lives on expectations.
It is difficult to make predictions about how the situation will develop in the future. We expect that the deal between OPEC + and the states joining it will help stabilize the situation. A coordinated reduction in global total production is the only true response to falling demand.
I want to emphasize that Gazprom Neft is in good shape and ready for any development on the market. We approached this crisis period, having a stable financial position and low debt burden. New large-scale projects are not yet in the active investment phase, which adds to our flexibility in decision-making. Of course, the company will have to be more conservative, once again evaluate all its plans, move the timing of individual projects. But the situation does not reflect on the goals of the Gazprom Neft strategy until 2030.
In our work, we focus not on the current market situation, but on the long term. The company will continue active innovative development, work with hard-to-recover reserves. The spread of coronavirus has once again confirmed the fidelity of our strategic focus on digital technologies, which allow you to control many processes remotely, increase their safety.
I am sure that we will come out of this situation with an even more effective and crisis-resistant company. Current events show how united we are. Our company is people who are not afraid of difficulties, but know how to work with them. At the same time supporting its partners and customers. And I am glad that I am part of the Gazprom Neft team!
Today, there are many predictions about the consequences of this virus and how long-term they will be. Yes, the world around us has changed a lot. But how we change ourselves depends only on us. Unfortunately, the spread of the virus in Russia and many countries is still ongoing. Therefore, I appeal once again to all visitors to the site of our company. Stay home if you can. Keep a positive attitude. And take care of yourself.
Chairman of the Management Board of
Gazprom Neft PJSC Alexander Dyukov
