Page 10 - AsianOil Week 44 2022

AsianOil SOUTHEAST ASIA AsianOil

Novatek still eyes Vietnamese

LNG market

PROJECTS & RUSSIA’S Novatek is looking to export LNG to agreement with Vietnam’s state-owned Petro-
COMPANIES Vietnam for existing and planned power plants Vietnam on developing LNG and power plant
in the country, company CEO Leonid Mikhelson projects in the southeast Asian country. And
Mikhelson appears said on October 28, according to Interfax. four years earlier, the Russian company signed
confident about Mikhelson said he did “not know when” the a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with
Novatek's abilities company might be able to realise a project that TotalEnergies and Siemens on collaborating on
in Asia despite the it had intended to implement with Germany’s LNG sales and developing infrastructure for
difficulties for Russia. Siemens and France’s TotalEnergies. Both West- newly built gas-fired plants in Vietnam.
ern companies have phased down their Rus- Much has changed since those agreements
sian activities in light of Moscow’s invasion of were reached. Novatek has been targeted by
Ukraine. international sanctions, barring its access to
“There is another [project] there. And in financing, technologies and co-operation, and
principle the consumer [is] there, a power plant, this has led to Arctic LNG-2, its second lique-
is being built, launched in 2024,” Mikhelson said. faction project, falling behind schedule. It is no
“And there is an existing one in the same region. longer expected to be completed by 2023 as pre-
I just spoke with the minister, it uses about 1bn viously planned, and the time frame is essentially
cubic metres of gas, while PetroVietnam’s own up in the air.
production is falling, so we could actually add Vietnam has been striving to curb its use of
[gas] there. The whole question is the cost.” coal as part of its climate ambitions, viewing nat-
He added that the company was considering ural gas as a substitute. As such, it has proposed a
building a regasification terminal in Vietnam. series of new power plant and LNG projects, but
Novatek last December signed a co-operation progress has been slow. The sharp increase in gas

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