PRESS: Govt to mull Natl Wealth Fund financing of Ust-Luga plant

MOSCOW, Jun 27 (PRIME) -- The government will consider financing of Russian gas giant Gazprom’s megaproject of processing ethane-bearing gas and production of liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga from the National Wealth Fund until 2023, Vedomosti business daily reported on Monday.

Before Western sanctions, the plant was the largest among the contenders for the National Wealth Fund’s money with the government planning to spend 900 billion rubles until 2024. But in June, Germany’s Linde notified Gazprom that it rejected plans to design and construct the plant.

Gazprom initially planned Spain, Portugal, the U.K., Latin America, and India to be the target markets for the plant’s products, Vedomosti reported.

First Deputy Economic Development Minister Ilya Torosov told Vedomosti that the ministry planned to update the list of projects on which the National Wealth Fund’s money could be spent until 2030. Sanctions on imports of equipment and component parts will not stop any project, the key factor here are the sales prospects and construction costs, he said.

“The problem is more of a strategic one here, the obstacle here is not replacing a German turbine with a Russian or a Chinese one, it is about adaptation of the projects, their payback periods, and (social and economic) importance,” he told the business daily.

So far, the government has already approved National Wealth Fund’s financing of construction of the Central Transport Hub, replacement of the rolling stock in St. Petersburg’s metro, and the fund’s upgrade program. Spending on the M-12 Moscow–Nizhny Novgorod–Kazan highway, the Kazan–Yekaterinburg highway, and the Tver bypass of the M-11 Moscow–St. Petersburg highway are at a high degree of readiness, and the ministry also approved capital injections of national institutions and companies from the fund, he said.

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