Minister: Russia's growing share in LNG market is strategic opportunity

Russia's growing positions in the international market of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be a strategic opportunity to build up the country's capital and to raise the people's well-being, Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunov told TASS.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the Russian government's position is to expand the list of fields to export LNG. Over seven years, the country plans to increase the annual production of LNG to 100 million tons.

"The growing share of the Russian Federation in the global market of LNG is a strategic opportunity to build up the country's revenues and to raise wellbeing of people in the North, and to make stronger the Russian economy," the minister said.

The Northern Sea Route's infrastructure development continues in line with this objective, he said. In summer, 2022, the country adopted a plan to develop the Northern Sea Route (NSR), where to 2035 the plan it to build ten icebreakers, 141 cargo vessels of ice class and service vessels, 14 ports and terminals, to launch into orbit 12 satellites, to build four rescue centers. Total investments in NSR development to 2035 will make 1.8 trillion rubles ($23.6 billion). These investments, the minister stressed, are protected by legally binding agreements between companies, working on major NSR projects, Rosatomflot (nuclear fleet authority), the Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic. The ministry is the work's coordinator.

At the government's meeting on Thursday, Prime Minister Mishustin suggested discussing a bill, which will "help to use more actively the Arctic routes to transport liquefied natural gas eastbound - to countries of the Asia-Pacific Region." As for the expanding of fields to export LNG, those are deposits in the Krasnoyarsk, Yamalo-Nenets regions, which, the prime minister said, have "huge reserves of natural gas - totally about 3 trillion cubic meters."

Presently, Russia's eight companies are licensed to export LNG: Gazprom, Gazprom Export, Gazprom Gazonefteproduct Holding, Rosneft, Yamal LNG, Arctic LNG - 1, Arctic LNG -2, and Arctic LNG - 3. The new bill suggests "granting an exclusive right on export of liquefied natural gas to subsoil onshore users, which are located fully or partially north of 67 degrees north latitude."

Source: Russian News Agency