Russia maintains goal of producing 120–140 mln tns of LNG per year

ST. PETERSBURG, Jun 17 (PRIME) -- Russia is not abandoning the goal of driving production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to 120–140 million tonnes per year from 30 million tonnes, Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said on Friday during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

“I will reiterate that we have previously set the goal of 120–140 million tonnes of LNG. We are not rejecting the announced goal at this stage in spite of the problems, we think that this amount may be achieved,” he said.

“Our production currently amounts to around 30 million tonnes if we disregard small-batch production. We think that the Yamal and Gydan production cluster alone will be capable of driving the production to 80–90 million tonnes as we think that it has a resource base enough for this production and that the project there are realistic.”

But Leonid Mikhelson, CEO of independent gas producer Novatek, said that localization of LNG equipment demands state support.

“The industry in foreign states has been developing over decades, we think it is impossible to organize production of such a complex equipment swiftly without state support,” he said, adding that research and development works for the LNG industry would require 24 billion rubles of investment.

The window of market opportunity for Russia in regards to LNG is narrowing down, so the country has to solve the problem with localization, he said.

(56.8691 rubles – U.S. $1)

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