SABETTA: The Russian President inaugurated on Friday a massive Liquefied Natural Gas refinery in the Arctic, one of the largest refineries in the world. President Vladímir Putin, travelled to the Yamal Peninsula in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of northwest Siberia, inside the Arctic circle, to inaugurate the gigantic Yamal Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) refinery, Efe news reported.
From the port of Sabetta, Putin watched the first LNG shipment being pumped on to the world’s first icebreaker LNG carrier ship, the “Arc7 Christophe de Margerie” with a capacity of 170,000 cubic metres.
The ARC 7 is the first icebreaker LNG carrier ship out of a planned LNG carrier fleet of 15.
Also present at the ceremony were representatives of the project’s international corporate partners.
“This first LNG cargo is a testament to the tremendous efforts of the project partners, contractors and all parties who managed to deliver Yamal LNG on time and on budget.
Together we managed to build from scratch a world-class LNG project in extreme conditions to exploit the vast gas resources of the Yamal peninsula,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of Total.
The project is expected to cost $27 billion and is jointly owned by Russia’s Novatek, France’s Total, China’s CNPC and the Silk Road Fund.
Yamal LNG aims to tap into northwest Siberia’s enormous natural gas reserves, accounting for 84 per cent of Russia’s total natural gas, and, once fully operational will double Russia’s share in the growing global LNG market. — IANS
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