None of the foreign partners are bailing from Novatek's Russian Arctic LNG-2 gas liquefaction project. The project is going according to plan, according to the financial director of the Chinese national oil and gas company CNOOC Xi Weizhi, dp.ru reported.
Chinese CNPC and CNOOC each own 10% of shares in the Arctic LNG-2 project, other shareholders with 10% shares are the French energy company TotalEnergies and the Japan Arctic LNG - a consortium of Japanese corporations Mitsui and Jogmec. Novatek owns 60% of the project.
Novatek sent the first platform for the production of liquefied natural gas on July 20 from its Center for the Construction of large-capacity offshore structures in Murmansk's Belokamenka to the Utrenneye field on the Gydan peninsula, where the floating plant should produce 6.6 million tons of LNG per year.
The installation of the first technological line at Gydan was completed on August 15, production should begin before the end of 2023. In total, the project provides for the construction of three LNG lines, the construction of the second is already underway, work begins on the concrete foundation of the third.
The Japanese authorities noted last year that Tokyo's anti-Russian sanctions do not concern LNG supplies from Russia. The Ministry of Finance of Japan also made an exception to the anti-Russian sanctions for the Arctic LNG-2, Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 projects, where Japanese companies own shares: Sodeco retained a 30% stake in the Sakhalin-1 project, and Mitsubishi and Mitsui & Co have 10% and 12.5% shares in Sakhalin-2, respectively.
Tokyo explains this fact as "ensuring the country's energy security."
Earlier it became known that the Finnish state company Gasum Oy resumed LNG purchases from the terminal of the Cryogaz-Vysotsk plant of Novatek, located in the port of Vysotsk, Leningrad Region in the Baltic Sea.
Alex Shishlo for Rough&Polished
