Page 11 - FSUOGM Week 28 2020

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM
Zvezda to start building Russia's first LNG carrier by year-end: Rosneft
RUSSIA
The Zvezda shipyard is playing a central role in Russia's import substitution drive.
RUSSIA’S Zvezda shipyard should start work this year on construction of the country’s rst LNG carrier (LNGC), one of its investors Ros- ne said last week, a er the yard signed a techni- cal assistance and licence agreement with French specialist GTT.
e agreement covers the use of GTT’s LNG membrane tank solutions and enables Zvezda to build the Arc7 ice-breaking LNGCs needed to work in the Russian Arctic, where Novatek is developing a ra of LNG export projects.
GTT has also won an order from the ship- yard for tank designs for ve of the vessels. ose ships will be used to carry gas from the Novatek- led Arctic LNG-2 project, due on stream in 2023. Each will have a 172,600-cubic metre storage capacity and will be tted with GTT’s Mark III membrane containment systems.
According to Rosne , which owns Zvezda alongside Gazprom and Gazprombank, design documentation for the first carrier is being developed. It will be able to sail through ice up to 2.1 metres thick and will use LNG as its fuel.
Arctic LNG-2 involves the construction of three liquefaction trains on the Gydan Penin- sula with a combined capacity of 19.8mn tonnes per year (tpy). ey will start up in 2023, 2024 and 2026 respectively. Novatek has a 60% stake in the project, while France’s Total has 10%, Chi- na’s CNPC and CNOOC each have 10%, and the remaining 10% is held by a joint venture between Japan’s Mitsui and JOGMEC.
Novatek has teamed up with Russian state shipowner Sovcom ot to operate a eet of 15-17 LNGCs for Arctic LNG-2. eir delivery will be timed to coincide with commissioning of the
project’s trains. Five of the tankers have been ordered from Zvezda.
e order for the rst vessel was placed by Sovcom ot, which will then transfer the vessel to Novatek under a time-charter agreement. e customer for the next four is Smart LNG, Novatek’s joint venture with Sovcom ot. Smart LNG signed a lease nancing agreement for the vessels with state development bank VEB.RF in February.
Zvezda has a central role in e orts to reduce Russia’s reliance on foreign shipbuilders, espe- cially in the oil and gas industry. Changes to Rus- sia’s merchant shipping code have even banned the use of foreign- agged and foreign-built ves- sels to transport hydrocarbons along the North- ern Sea Route (NSR).
However, Novatek has raised concerns that this restriction will slow the pace of its develop- ment plans. e company managed to secure an exemption for a 15-strong eet to ship gas from its rst LNG project, the 17mn tpy Yamal LNG plant. ese vessels were all built by South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engi- neering (DSME).
While Arctic LNG-2’s tankers are all due to be constructed at Zvezda, Novatek has received a similar exemption for ordering 10 more vessels at foreign shipyards, arguing that the Far East- ern shipyard lacks the capacity to build so many ships in such a short timeframe. ese vessels are expected to handle gas from the 5mn tpy Obsk LNG – another project it wants to develop on its own. A nal investment decision (FID) on Obsk LNG was expected by mid-2020 but has been delayed in light of the market collapse.™
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