Gazprom May Build LNG Complex For Japanese

摘要

Gazprom and a consortium of Japanese companies, led by Itochu Corp., have agreed to study building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant and a gas chemical complex in Russia's Far East city of Vladivostok as Japan seeks to boost fuel supplies after its worst nuclear accident. The companies will carry out a feasibility study for a plant with the capacity to produce 10 million tons a year of LNG. That would more than double Russia's capacity to produce LNG, rivaling the Gazprom-led Sakhalin-2 project, north of Japan. The study could have a bearing on possible increases in Gazprom's natural gas supplies from Russia to the Pacific Rim states and for making energy supplies to Japan more reliable and secure. Construction of the plant was dependent on the launch of gas supplies from the Republic of Sakha Yakutia in northeast Siberia. Gazprom plans to start construction of the Yakutia-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline in 2012. It is preparing a feasibility study for the 4,500-km pipeline which could have an annual capacity of 32-35 Bern of gas.