LNG

Russian natural gas company Gazprom and the German engineering and industrial gases company Linde have signed accords on the LNG and processing project at Ust-Luga west of St. Petersburg and on the Amur Gas Processing Plant in the Russian Far East.

The signings came at a meeting in St. Petersburg between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Wolfgang Reitzle, Board Chairman at Linde, as well as other executives from both companies.

The meeting covered several issues, including the project for the creation of the Gas Processing Complex in Ust-Luga.

Kirill Seleznev, Director General of RusKhimAlyans, and Juergen Nowicki, Chief Executive of Linde Engineering, signed an agreement of intent in the presence of Miller and Reitzle.

The document outlines the main terms and conditions of a prospective Engineering, Procurement and Site Services (EPSS) contract for Linde.

Gazprom and RusGazDobycha, a special purposes company securing gas supplies for Russia’s chemicals industry, are expecting the various facilities at Ust-Luga to require the processing of 45 billion cubic metres of natural gas per annum.

RusKhimAlyans, a 50-50 joint venture between Gazprom and RusGazDobycha, have already signed 20-year commercial contracts for supplies of feed gas and sales gas as well as ethane fraction for chemicals.

Gazprom and RusGazDobycha are implementing the venture and RusKhimAlyans will be the operator. It is the anchor project of the major gas processing and chemical cluster that is being established in the region.

“The complex will have the largest capacity in Russia in terms of gas processing and will be the largest in northwest Europe in terms of LNG production at 13 million tonnes per annum,” said Gazprom.

“In addition to LNG, its commercial products will include ethane fraction, liquefied petroleum gases and pentane-hexane fraction,” it added.

The parties also reviewed current issues of cooperation, including Gazprom’s Amur Gas Processing Plant (GPP) construction.

“Linde’s equipment for cryogenic gas separation and for helium production is employed at the enterprise,” said Gazprom.

“The GPP’s first two production Trains are being prepared for commissioning at the moment,” the Russian company added.

The Linde Group of Germany was awarded a contract by a Chinese chemical and energy company to supply a mid-scale liquefied natural gas liquefaction plant at an industrial site near Beinichuan in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China.

A Swedish ferry line that runs state-subsidised domestic ferries from the ports of Nynashamn and Oskarshamn to Visby on the island of Gotland has signed an LNG supply agreement with Hamburg, Germany-based Nauticor, part of the Linde Group.

Gazprom said its board considered a new report forecasting most global shale-gas production was likely to be concentrated primarily in North America in the medium-term and long-term so that the Russian natural gas company would have to boost its own shale and LNG prospects as European and Chinese developments lagged.

Planning is continuing for the Arctic LNG-2 project in Siberia to start development once the Russian Yamal LNG project comes on stream at the end of 2017, with energy and LNG engineering company TechnipFMC likely to play a prominent role.

Linde Group said its US subsidiary has teamed up with Prometheus Energy Group to supply equipment for LNG operations to help US northeast utilities maintain sufficient gas line pressure in local networks.

The Linde Group of Germany has lined up its Bomin Linde LNG unit, a provider of liquefied natural gas as a marine fuel, to capture a large share of the Baltic Sea regional market from Hamburg with its renamed subsidiary Nauticor.

Germany’s Linde has signed an agreement with a US-based liquefied natural gas equipment maker in Pennsylvania, the subsidiary of a Japanese company, to cooperate on small-scale and medium-sized liquefied natural gas production ventures.