Russia: Novatek, EDF in Yamal LNG Talks

According to the Spokesman of Novatek, the second largest gas producer in Russia, development of Yamal LNG project could include some new stakeholders, Reuters informs.

“We are in talks about adding a number of companies, including EDF, to Yamal LNG,” the spokesman said.

Novatek is looking for partners and sharing costs in the project implementation, however it plans to remain majority stakeholder in the project with at least 51 % share.

Russia is eager to avail of the natural gas reserves in the Artic area of the Yamal Peninsula. It is estimated that these resources could result in production of over 15 million tons of LNG per year as of 2018.

For the time being options are being tabled on the manners of increasing LNG annual capacity in Russia for additional 60 million tons per year, since at the moment the capacity of Gazprom’s Sakhalin-2 LNG project amounts to 10 million tons on annual basis.

The final decision on future partners in the investment will be made public before the end of this year.

[mappress]

LNG World News Staff, April 19, 2012; Image: Novatek