Russia is attempting to overcome its LNG production shortfall compared with its vast energy resources by finally passing a law next month allowing companies other than natural gas giant Gazprom to export LNG.
Russia currently has one LNG plant operating, the Sakhalin II facility in the Russian Far East, but five others are being developed at various speeds.
The Gazprom LNG monopoly has not been beneficial for the country as its biggest planned LNG project, the Shtokman venture, is years behind schedule, analysts say, as the company concentrates on its prime role as the biggest pipeline natural gas supplier to Europe.
Although Gazprom operates the Sakhalin plant that facility and infrastructure were developed by Royal Dutch Shell before Gazprom took control.
A third venture involving Gazprom, Vladivostok LNG, is making progress as it's backed by Japanese energy and trading companies intent on bringing new volumes to Japan.
Now Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Russia President Vladimir Putin have said they are determined to bring the country up to speed on LNG - at a time when the US is emerging as an LNG export power - by putting the long-awaited export law before the State Duma, Russia's lower house, in November.
When passed the law will open the way for the Yamal LNG project to advance at a faster pace under Novatek, the second-largest Russian natural gas producer run by its strong Chairman Leonid Mikhelson.
In addition to having France's Total on board Yamal, Mikhelson recently signed an agreement to bring China National Petroleum Corp. into the venture, giving the project in Russia's Arctic region a promise of Chinese project financing.
Yamal LNG will see the construction of three liquefaction Trains, each with capacity of 5.5 million tonnes per annum, near Sabetta, a location in Russia located inside the Arctic circle.
Novatek and its partners Total and CNPC are aiming for a start-up date of 2018.
Additonally, ExxonMobil and Russian oil producer Rosneft are developing a $15 billion liquefaction venture to be built near Gazprom's existing Sakhalin LNG plant.
The new LNG project is being pushed by the Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin, who is close to President Putin.
Rosneft as a state-run company would have been free to export LNG without a formal licence, but the fact that the Rosneft-ExxonMobil project is going ahead shows that the Gazprom monopoly is on the way out, analysts add.
While Rosneft won't need the export licence it will be of use to the little-known Pechora LNG project, which envisages exporting from the Nenets autonomous region, a Russian federal entity which is four times the size of Switzerland but with a population of just over 42,000 people.
Pechora LNG has had a study carried out by the Italian unit of LNG engineering company Technip.
The project now plans a liquefaction plant in a non-freezing part of the Barents sea coast, 230 kilometres from the largest town in Nenets called Naryan-Mar.
Feed-gas for the project will come from the Kumzhinskoye and Korovinskoye natural gas fields, located near the delta of the Pechora River that gives the project its name.
The fifth Russian LNG project is also run by Gazprom.
The Russian company in June 2013 launched with it called "a fundamentally new and ambitious project" in the Leningrad region near St Petersburg to develop an LNG production project with capacity of 10 MTPA.
Gazprom Chairman Alexey Miller said at the time the he had started developing an investment rationale and selecting a construction site.
Miller and Alexander Drozdenko, Governor of the Leningrad Region, have signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation regarding the LNG venture.
