Yamal LNG Aims to Beat Timetable

The second and third trains of the Yamal LNG plant in Russia's far north are planned to be commissioned ahead of schedule. This was announced on July 24 at a press conference by operator Novatek's CEO Leonid Mikhelson.

The first train is due to commission in the last quarter of this year. “We will try to start Yamal LNG as soon as possible. We planned to bring on each train at the end of 2017, then 2018 and then 2019. I think the second train will be brought on line a month or three earlier. And the third train will be introduced six-nine months earlier,” Mikhelson said.

The Yamal LNG plant will operate on the resource base of the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field in Yamal. The designed capacity of the enterprise after the commissioning of the entire three lines will reach 16.5mn metric tons of LNG or 22.7bn m³ of pipeline gas/year.

Novatek has 50.1%, French oil company Total has 20%, Chinese state corporation CNPC has 20% and the Silk Road Fund has 9.9%. The total cost of the construction, including transport infrastructure, is $27bn and 96% of the total sales gas is already contracted.

Azerbaijan desk