"Gazprom" to choose a new foreign partner for Baltic LNG,probably Shell .

"Gazprom" will choose a new foreign partner.

"Gazprom" can now select a strategic partner in the "Baltic LNG" plant project worth up to 1 trillion roubles. According to "the Kommersant", two candidates are left, one of which is the Anglo-Dutch Shell. The agreement will be the first major investment by foreign companies in a new project into the Russian fuel and energy sector since the introduction of sanctions against Russia. And with technology and investment "Gazprom" will be able to finally move on to the real work on the prolonged project of its second LNG plant.

According to sources of "the Kommersant" in the gas industry, to at the meeting of the deputy chairman of "Gazprom" Vitaly Markelov be held today, which monopoly can decide about their partner on the construction of a gas liquefaction plant in the Baltic region. The most likely option is the Anglo-Dutch Shell, the second contender is "a consortium of Japanese companies", one of the interlocutors of "the Kommersant" states. It is expected that a strategic partner will receive up to 49% of the project and at the same time will be the technology supplier of large-scale gas liquefaction. If the candidate is approved, a memorandum of joining the project can be signed at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum this week, one of the interlocutors of "the Kommersant" state. Shell and "Gazprom" declined to comment.