EMEA News
Gazprom Plans Baltic LNG Bunker Plant for 2020
Gazprom is considering building a small Baltic Sea plant to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) for shipping fuel with a capacity of up to 1 million tonnes per year by 2020, Reuters reports.
"Taking into account the tightening of pollution level rules... gas is now starting to be more and more viewed as a fuel for different types of transport," said Olga Lotsmanova, the Russian company's chief technologist for gas fuels development.
Lotsmanova predicted that the use of LNG bunkers in Emissions Control Areas (ECAs) will be 10 times its current level—amounting to 10 percent of ships—by 2015.
Gazprom now operates Russia's only LNG plant at Sakhalin island in the Pacific, and it is planning two more large plants in the Far East and on the Baltic Sea.
The company has said it wants to establish itself as a central player in the natural gas market in the Baltic area, and it has predicted the use of LNG bunkers could hit 8 to 10 billion cubic meters per year by 2030.
