Gazprom is not going to attract partner in Vladivostok LNG project
Gazprom is not going to attract any partners for the construction of an LNG plant in Vladivostok, and analyzes the opportunity for supplies from the plant to China, the official representative of Gazprom, S. Kupriyanov says. He attracts attention to large perspective in the enlargement of gas demand in the APO region, first of all in China, Korea and Japan. In his opinion, the projects for the broadening of its own production in these states, for example the production of shale gas or methane from the sea bottom cannot satisfy all regional gas demand. Mr. Kupriyanov says that Gazprom values the projects in the states demonstrated in the sphere as support for their internal markets, not substituting for gas exports. Now they actively negotiate with China about gas price that will be supplied there via Altai pipeline.
As for creation of new LNG capacities in Far East, the elaborated investment study does not propose the attraction of external participants, including from China. At the same time, LNG from the Vladivostok plant can be supplied to the Chinese terminals.
At the beginning of February, Gazprom completed the elaboration of the investment study for the project Vladivostok LNG proposing the construction of an LNG plant at the Lomonosov peninsula. The plant will consist of several technological lines, and its annual capacity will be 10 million tons of LNG. The first line will start operation in 2018.
The agreement for LNG plant's construction was achieved in May 2010. Earlier Gazprom analyze the opportunity of the attraction to the project of the Japan Far East Gas Co., the consortium of the Japanese companies comprising Itochu, Japex, Marubeni, Inpex and Cieco.. Unofficially, the sides evaluated investment at $7 billion, the recoupment period is 7-8 years and supplies were planned to Japan and South Korea at a rate of 7 and 3 million tons respectively. As a result, in September 2012, Gazprom and Japan signed the memorandum for cooperation in the further promotion of the project, including in the spheres of financing and gas marketing.
Rosneft also claims for LNG supplies to the APO region. Last week its President, I. Sechin asked the state authorities, directly, for the first time, about the liberalization of LNG exports. A half of Rosneft’s shelf reserves is gas, i.e. 21 trillion cubic m of the fuel. Under the law, the company should extract it.The internal market is unable to consume the volume under geographical, investment and other reasons. Mr. Sechin thinks that the permission for LNG exports for Rosneft and other companies operating on the Russian shelf will cause no damage to Gazprom’s export policy, as these markets will be principally different to those of Gazprom.
Translated by Nadezhda Poltoratskaya
