Gazprom Aims to Dominate Asian LNG Market

Gazprom is aiming to become a dominant player in the liquefied natural gas market by targeting booming demand in Asia, CEO Alexei Miller told an annual meeting on Friday.

"In the near future, Gazprom will become a major player on the LNG market," the head of the world's largest natural gas company told company shareholders, AFP reported.

In 2011, the state-run firm produced 10.67 million tons of LNG at its only current plant off Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East, saying this figure should grow markedly with a firmer focus on Asian sales.

Miller said that in addition to the growth in traditional markets such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan, there is great potential in large new consumers such as India and China, the AFP report said.

Energy demand is also growing in Singapore, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Bangladesh, he added, saying Gazprom expected to launch a new LNG plant in the Russian Pacific port city of Vladivostok by 2017.

Gazprom plans to build the plant with a Japanese consortium led by trading house Itochu with a reported price tag of about 1.0 trillion yen ($12.45 billion). The facility will receive natural gas from other parts of Russia and convert it to LNG before shipping it to countries in the Asia-Pacific.