Vladivostok LNG, in investment stage, expecting another Gazprom decision for implementation
MOSCOW. June 16 (Interfax) - The Vladivostok LNG project, which since February 2013 has been implemented in the investment stage of realization, needs an additional decision for its implementation.
Gazprom Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov told journalists: "The project documentation is the final stage. We handed over the documents for an expert review. The decision will be made after the review of documentation and after marketing is developed," Markelov.
When asked whether the latest decision amounts to annulment of the previously approved investment decision, one of the project's most enthusiastic advocates, the head of Gazprom's department for coordinating eastern projects, Viktor Timoshilov, would only comment: "Let what was already been said stand."
Vladivostok LNG has very high costs: gas for the plant would be extracted from challenging fields on the Sakhalin shelf and then transported 1,350 kilometers by pipeline. The steep decline in oil prices has further complicated the project. Six months ago, Gazprom officially acknowledged that a pipeline to China could serve as an alternative to the LNG plant.
In March 2015, the general director of Gazprom LNG Vladivostok LLC, Igor Krutikov, who at one time was in charge of construction of the big Bovanenkovo field, was reassigned to a different project - the Chayandinskoye field - through appointment as general director of Gazprom Dobycha Noyabrsk LLC.
