Summa Capital finds partner to work gas deposits in Yakutia, export LNG
MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - The investment group Summa Capital has found a partner for the joint development of gas deposits in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) with proven reserves of almost 185 billion that could guarantee the companies can export liquefied natural gas to Asian and Pacific Rim countries, a source in the gas industry told Interfax.
OJSC Yakutia Fuel and Energy Company, which is part of Summa Capital, holds licenses for the industrial development of the Srednevilyuiskoye and Mastakhskoye gas condensate deposits; for geological research, prospecting, and production at the Mirninskoye and Tolonskoye hydrocarbon sections; and for geological research with the aim of finding and evaluating deposits with the Tymtaidakh region of (Yakutia).
The company is now providing only the republic with gas and is not exporting it. The source said that, together with its new partner, Summa Capital plans to carry out a project for exporting gas to Asian and Pacific Rim countries through at port on the Sea of Okhotsk. To be able to do so, the company plans to build a gas pipeline. They might also build their own gas-liquefaction plant near the port from which the gas is to be exported by tankers from the purchasing countries.
Another Interfax source suggested that this investor is likely to be one of the structures associated the founder of the oil trader Gunvor Gennady Timchenko. Summa Capital has neither confirmed this nor provided additional comment.
Timchenko has only one gas-sector asset - 23.5% of the stock in independent producer OJSC NOVATEK . NOVATEK plans to build a gas-liquefaction plant on the Yamal peninsula by 2016 and is looking to Asian and Pacific Rim countries as potential markets. Yamal LNG (Yamal Liquefied Natural Gas), 51% owned by NOVATEK and 49% slated for sale to foreign investors, in particular 20% to the French company Total), has an agent agreement to export gas with Russian gas-export monopoly Gazprom .