Gazprom diversifying its export routes

Russian gas giant Gazprom said its Board of Directors approved the company’s strategy aimed at diversifying export routes and increasing the Russian gas competitiveness.

“With a view to provide stable and well-balanced supplies of Russian gas to Europe as well as to mitigate the risks related to gas transit via third countries, Gazprom makes great efforts to expand the existing gas transmission routes and to build up the new ones,” Gazprom said in a statement.

A project for constructing a new gas pipeline with a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters from Russia to Turkey has entered the execution stage. The gas transmission route will be laid via the Black Sea and will annually supply up to 47 billion cubic meters of gas to the Turkish-Greece border.

The gas pipeline will represent the alternative export route, which, in combination with Nord Stream, Blue Stream and the Yamal – Europe gas pipeline, will secure the whole Russian gas exports beyond the CIS and will make it possible to abandon the transit corridor via Ukraine, the statement said.

Gazprom is also focused on supplying significant volumes of Russian pipeline gas to Asia-Pacific. The work is underway to have the resource and transmission base in place for the start of gas supplies from Russia to China via the eastern route. The Agreement on Russian gas purchase and sales via the western route is being formulated, according to Gazprom.

Gazprom said it continues to reinforce its positions in the LNG trade and transportation segments, in addition to gas pipeline projects. Gazprom sold 4.5 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas in 2014, thereby having surpassed the 2013 result (2.0 billion cubic meters) more than twofold. The company is keen to promote Gazprom’s LNG in niche and emerging markets of Asia-Pacific, the statement said.

The company intends to build up its presence in new markets primarily by the way of increasing its own production activity. Gazprom plans to construct LNG plants with a capacity of 10 million tons a year in the Leningrad Region and the Primorye Territory. The company also considers a possibility of constructing a new process train within the Sakhalin II project, it added.

Image: Gazprom