Yamal LNG Launch Will Boost Russian Arctic Ambitions

摘要

President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the opening ceremony on Dec. 8 of Novatek’s Yamal LNG project in Russia’s far north, underlining its key role in Moscow’s strategic drive to develop the Arctic and open up the northern sea route to Asia. Russia’s second liquefaction plant and its first in the Arctic, Yamal LNG plans at the ceremony in Sabetta to load its first cargo on the Christophe de Margerie tanker. The plant should reach its full design capacity of 16.5 million metric tons per year in 2019, more than doubling the almost 11 million tons/yr of Russia’s current LNG exports from Gazprom and Royal Dutch Shell’s Sakhalin-2 plant in the country’s far east.