Page 7 - FSUOGM Week 02 2020

FSUOGM COMMENTARY FSUOGM
first, at a 0.9mn tpy fourth train at Yamal LNG, expected to start up shortly.
Novatek is also working with state nuclear company Atomenergomash to develop other equipment and technologies for LNG production.
Shipping
Within the next five years Russia also hopes to be capable of building its own onshore and offshore seismic and exploration units, and also produc- tion platforms, as well as a modern fleet for oil and LNG transport, according to Manturov.
A centrepiece in efforts to develop domes- tic shipbuilding is the Zvezda shipyard in the Far East, a joint venture between state-owned Rosneft and Gazprombank. While Rosneft has ordered almost all its required vessels at Zvezda, Novatek claims it is unable to do the same.
The gas company ordered all the LNG car- riers (LNGCs) for Yamal LNG at foreign ship- yards. While it has placed an order at Zvezda for 15 LNGCs to ship gas from Arctic LNG-2, Novatek head Leonid Mikhelson reportedly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin in a let- ter in November whether the 10 ships needed for Obsk LNG could come from overseas.
“The construction of an additional fleet within this timeframe can only be carried out at foreign shipyards,” Mikhelson said in the letter, according to Kommersant, noting that the orders
would need to be made “in the near future.” Novatek would not be breaking any laws by ordering the ships abroad, and nor does it offi- cially need Putin’s permission to do so. But the company is aware that outsourcing to Asian shipyards runs counter to Russia’s import sub-
stitution drive.
Offshore
Manturov also noted the Industry Minister and state-owned Gazprom had secured RUB3.5bn ($57mn) in support for joint development of off- shore production equipment over the past two years. The minister forecast that Russia would need to localise the production of 300 compo- nents of subsea systems by 2035 to satisfy the needs of Gazprom, Rosneft and leading private oil producer Lukoil.
Russia will need to exploit large offshore Arc- tic oil deposits to keep its production stable over the coming decades. But sanctions make this a difficult task.
So far the only project in production on the Arctic shelf is the Prirazlomnoye field operated by Gazprom Neft, and no new offshore fields are anticipated to come on stream until after 2030. Weak market conditions have of course held back offshore Arctic development, but Russia will also need to develop the technology and equipment barred under Western sanctions to realise new projects. ™
PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
MOL, COSCO name newest LNG carrier
CHINA
The vessel will serve at the Yamal LNG project.
JAPAN’S Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and China COSCO Shipping have named the second of four LNG carriers the companies have commis- sioned to transport fuel produced by Russia’s Yamal LNG project. The naming ceremony for LNG MERAK was held at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding’s yard in Guangdong Province on January 9.
MOL and COSCO signed an agreement in June 2017 for the four vessels, which MOL will operate but will be 50:50 owned by the partners. Hudong-Zhonghua delivered the first vessel, LNG DUBHE, in October 2019. MOL said LNG MERAK would be its 12th operated LNG carrier built in China.
All four vessels will have 174,000 cubic metres of transportation carrying capacity and will be responsible for delivering fuel shipped to European destinations by Yamal LNG’s fleet of Arc7 icebreakers to buyers in Asia.
The Novatek-led Yamal LNG project has a current faceplate production capacity of 16.5mn tonnes per year, spread across three 5.5mn tpy trains. Work is ongoing at a fourth train, which will have a capacity of 900,000 tpy.
Russia’sprivatelyownedNovatekoperatesthe
project with a 50.1% stake, while French major Total owns 20%, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) owns 20% and China’s state-backed Silk Road Fund holds the remain- ing 9.9%.
The project, which is developing the South Tambey field’s resources, has 926bn cubic metres of estimated proven and probable (2P) gas reserves.
On December 11, Yamal LNG announced the start-up of the 15th and final Arc7 ice-class tanker built for the project. Each vessel in the fleet is 299 metres long, has a capacity of 172,600 cubic metres and can break through two-metre thick ice.
The project said the fleet would not only be able to deliver all of the output from the first three trains, which are understood to be running above capacity, but would also be able to trans- port the fourth train’s additional output.
Business Korea reported on January 9 that while Russian shipyard Zvezda had won orders for a fleet of 15 Arc7 vessels to service Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project, Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) was expected to be selected as the pre- ferredyardforanadditional10suchvessels.™
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