Russia’s Novatek celebrates another Yamal LNG milestone

The Novatek-operated Yamal LNG project located in the Russian Arctic said Wednesday that it has shipped its thirtieth million ton of the chilled fuel since the start of the project.

The Arc7 ice-class tanker “Nikolay Yevgenov” loaded the 411th cargo as the project reached 30 million tons of LNG dispatched since the start-up of Train 1 in December 2017, according to the Yamal LNG statement.

The facility is currently exceeding the design capacity of 16.5 million tons per annum of LNG, the statement said.

In 2019, the first full year of simultaneous operation of all three liquefaction trains, Yamal LNG produced 18.4 million tons of LNG, exceeding the plant’s design capacity by 11 percent or 1.9 million tons.

Yamal LNG is building a 17.4 mtpa natural gas liquefaction plant comprised of three trains of 5.5 mtpa each and one LNG train of 900 thousand tons per annum, utilizing the hydrocarbon resources of the South-Tambeyskoye field in the Russian Arctic.

The first train began production in the fourth quarter of 2017 while trains 2 and 3 started producing the fuel in July 2018 and November 2018, respectively.

Yamal LNG shareholders include Novatek (50.1%), France’s Total (20%), China’s CNPC (20%), and the Silk Road Fund (9.9%).