Page 7 - FSUOGM Week 12 2021

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM

YATEC eyes Russian LNG foray

RUSSIA A small-sized gas supplier working in the Rus- metres per year of gas, which is used to meet
sian Far East has plans for a major LNG export demand in the city of Yakutsk and surrounding
Yakutsk LNG will project in the remote region – a project with a settlements.
produce 17.7mn tpy of reported price tag of up to $35bn. The plan is to ramp up production to as high
LNG at full capacity. The Yakutsk Fuel and Energy Co. (YATEC) as 15 bcm per year to underpin Yakutsk LNG’s
plans to export as much as 17mn tonnes per year first phase, and up to 28 bcm per year to support
(tpy) of super-cooled gas from the Far East, its its second. YATEC also plans to expand explora-
deputy general director for gas production and tion activity, with the goal of boosting its reserves
processing, Sergey Kuznetsov, told an audience from 390 bcm at present to over 1 trillion cubic
at the LNG Congress Russia in Moscow on metres.
March 17. The company is currently in talks with “We have tremendous amounts of hydrocar-
Russia’s energy ministry on obtaining an export bons and great potential for further prospecting,”
licence for the project. the director told the conference.
The Yakutsk LNG plant will initially consist of YATEC recently acquired three more gas
two trains with a combined production capacity exploration licences in Yakutia and has said it
of 8.7mn tpy. Two more larger units would be will spend RUB3.3bn ($44mn) on seismic sur-
added at a later stage, bringing overall output veying campaigns at the site.
to 17.7mn tpy. While the liquefaction terminal How quickly Yakutsk LNG will make pro-
itself would be built at Ayan harbour, the fields gress is unclear. Besides Novatek’s projects in the
that feed its gas are located far away in the west of Russian Far North, few other large-scale lique-
the Yakutia region. As such, a 1,300-km pipeline faction plans have made progress in Russia. Both
will need to be built. state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft have been
The project's cost is estimated at $30-35bn, a struggling for years to advance projects, with
source told Russia's Interfax on March 17. little to show for it.
Realising the Yakutsk LNG plan will require Pre-front-end engineering and design
a significant upscaling of YATEC’s operations, (FEED) work on Yakutsk LNG is almost com-
according to Kuznetsov. The company, which plete, Kuznetsov said, adding that construction
was acquired by Russian investor A-Property in of its pipeline would take around three years. The
2019 after falling behind in its debt payments, executive did not go into any further detail on
currently produces only around 1.7bn cubic the project’s target schedule. ™

Week 12 24•March•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7