EMEA News
New Northeast Russia LNG Plant Could Start Construction in 2015
The construction of a 5 million tonne-per-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant on the Russian island of Sakhalin in the Pacific northeast is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2015, Russian news site IAA Portnews reports.
The Russian government says it is working with state oil company OAO Rosneft (Rosneft) and ExxonMobil Corp. (ExxonMobil), which will complete design work, engineering surveys, and project documentation in 2013 and 2014.
A likely location for the plant is the district of Iljinskoye on the island's southwest coast, where a state regional power plant and infrastructure improvements are planned.
Sakhalin is already the site of an LNG plant jointly owned by Russian gas company Gazprom OAO and Royal Dutch Shell, but a planned expansion of that facility has not moved forward.
As the potential market for LNG has grown, Russian authorities have moved to break up Gazprom's monopoly on exports of the fuel.
An industry source told Ship & Bunker that the planned Rosneft-ExxonMobil project has created some tension as Gazprom seeks to retain its monopoly, arguing that there are not enough regional gas deposits to support the new facility.
