Rosneft efforts to export gas from Russia confined to Far East LNG project, exports to EU possible from Venezuela - Sechin
MOSCOW. June 22 (Interfax) - Rosneft's efforts to export gas from Russia are limited only to its LNG project in the country's Far East, but the Russian oil major nonetheless plans to become a supplier of gas to the European market by building an LNG plant as part of an offshore project in Venezuela, the company's president, Igor Sechin said on Tuesday.
"We are actively working on the gas program. In general, as an energy source, gas will have a big future in the medium-term program. But due to legislative restrictions, we can't ship gas out of Russia, with the exception of liquefaction projects," Sechin said in an interview with TV channel Rossiya 24.
"We're implementing one project in the East, and our work on exporting gas from Russia is confined to this," Sechin said.
However, he said Rosneft plans to work on foreign markets and recently delivered its first tanker of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Egypt.
"We are also planning similar work in Europe. This, certainly, is not related to some kind of competition with Gazprom at all, because Gazprom supplies pipeline gas to Europe and our shipments of small amounts of LNG through regasification terminals in no way affect the effectiveness of Gazprom's work," Sechin said.
"But we are trying to acquire, develop such competencies," Sechin said, adding that the company will be implementing an offshore production project in Venezuela, where "we will certainly put a liquefaction plant," and "I think that the key market for us, of course, will be Europe."
Commenting on the potential scale of gas shipments, he said it was too early to talk about this. "There, under current legislation, it is necessary to hand over about half to our local partners, but we will certainly effectively monetize our half. The European market is one of the best in this sense and, actually, decent conditions could be created for transport," Sechin said.