Yamal LNG FID May Be Reached by End of Year

Total's president of exploration and production, Yves-Louis Darricarrere, has said that a final investment decision on the LNG portion of the Yamal project in Russia may be made by the end of this year.

The decision would be made at the earliest by the end of this year, or at the latest at the beginning of next year, ICIS reports the executive as saying.

The assertion comes five days after majority stakeholder in the project Novatek said it would formally call for tenders into the LNG project later this month. Chief executive of Novatek Leonid Mikhelson said the company would offer tenders to build a liquefied natural gas plant on the Yamal LNG project, Bloomberg reported, with the formal announcement to come later this month.

The plant would deal with an initial 5 million tonnes of liquefied gas from 2016 when the LNG project is expected to be ;aunched, rising to 15 million tonnes by 2018. The gas liquefied by the plant would come from the South-Tambeyskoye field, a large field in the north-eastern section of the Yamal peninsula.

Russian Novatek holds the largest stake in the Yamal LNG project with an 80 per cent stake, while Total holds a 20 per cent stake. However, Novatek has said that it is seeking partners in the project, with several companies, including Indian, Qatari and Japanese in consideration. The company is seeking to take on two or three partners in the project sometime this year but would seek to retain at least a 51 per cent stake in the project.