Putin: Yamal LNG Investment Exceeds RUB 60 Bln

President of Russia Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting on creating modern facilities for the production of liquefied natural gas on the Yamal Peninsula – the Yamal LNG project – and building the Sabetta seaport.

The meeting was attended by Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Ivanov, presidential aides Andrei Belousov and Igor Levitin, Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Urals Federal District Igor Kholmanskikh, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area Governor Dmitry Kobylkin, Deputy Finance Minister Andrei Ivanov, and the CEOs of NOVATEK and Sovcomflot.

Vladimir Putin said that industrial and infrastructural development of the Yamal Peninsula holds national importance and that it would allow the country to tap the rich deposits which could lead to major socioeconomic development not only of the Yamal-Nenets Area, but probably even have important outcomes for the entire country.

The purpose of Yamal LNG project is to create modern facilities for the production of LNG in Yamal Peninsula and that the project’s resource base, the South Tambeyskoye gas field, has natural gas reserves amounting to 1.3 trillion cubic metres. Putin also reminded that twenty percent of Russia’s proven natural gas reserves are concentrated in the Yamal Peninsula.

Federal budget has also set aside nearly 47.3 billion rubles for the construction of a Sabetta seaport and experts foretell that the production of 5.5 million tonnes of LNG is expected to start in 2017. By this time the Sabetta port should begin handling and shipping hydrocarbons.

Putin underlined that compared with 2011, the amount of traffic along the Northern Sea Route increased by 53% in 2012, and exceeded 1.26 million tonnes. In 2013, this figure has already reached 1.5 million tonnes. By 2015, volumes are projected to reach 4 million tonnes. The construction of a modern Arctic port would consolidate this trend, he said.

“The Yamal LNG project is also important to us as a successful example of public-private partnership that we must actively replicate. Let me recall that by the beginning of September 2013 private investors had already invested more than 60 billion rubles in the project. An important condition for the successful implementation of the Yamal LNG project is efficient cooperation between all participants. By this I mean the representatives of federal agencies, regional authorities and private investors,” Putin concluded.

1 Russian ruble = 0.031159 U.S. dollars

[mappress]
LNG World News Staff, September 26, 2013; Image: kremlin.ru