Putin powers giant $27 bn Russian LNG project in Arctic
8 Dec 2017 11:00 PM IST
Sabetta (Russia): President Vladimir Putin launched on Friday a $27 billion liquefied natural gas plant in the snow-covered plains of the Arctic as Russia hopes to surpass Qatar to become the world's biggest exporter of the chilled fuel.
In temperatures of around minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit), the Russian president was scheduled to oversee the first gas shipment being loaded onto an icebreaking tanker from an LNG plant in the port of Sabetta on the Yamal Peninsula above the Arctic Circle. For the project, Russia's privately owned gas producer Novatek partnered with France's Total and China's CNPC.
"Without a doubt Russia not only can but will become the largest producer of liquefied natural gas in the world," Putin said in March.
"We have everything for it."
Qatar is currently the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Russia, the world's biggest gas exporter, derives a huge share of income from pipeline deliveries to Europe.
With Yamal LNG, the country intends to strengthen its market presence in Asia and demonstrate its capacity to exploit huge Arctic reserves despite major technological challenges. Total said the first shipment from the Yamal plant was ready to leave Sabetta.
"Together we managed to build from scratch a world-class LNG project in extreme conditions to exploit the vast gas resources of the Yamal peninsula," Patrick Pouyanne, Total chairman and CEO, was quoted as saying in a statement.
Putin was expected to oversee the launch ceremony at around 1240 GMT, a Novatek spokesman said.
The tanker that will carry the first cargo was named after Christophe de Margerie, a former Total CEO who died in an accident on a runway of a Moscow airport in 2014.
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