LNG transshipment complex to be built in Jan 2023 in Kamchatka subject to completion of dredging in Q1 2022 - plan
MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax) - An offshore transshipment complex for liquefied natural gas (LNG), including federal property with a ship access channel and maritime navigation safety facilities, is set to be built in the Kamchatka territory in January 2023, according to the plan to implement the National Program for Socio-Economic Development of the Far East for the period until 2024 and until 2035, and Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev has agreed to the plan's implementation.
According to the document that Interfax has seen, deadlines are set for the timely construction of the federal property facilities, including the completion of dredging for the approach channel in Bechevinskaya Bay by no later than Q1 2022.
Novatek , Russia's Transport Ministry, the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport (Rosmorrechflot), and federal state unitary enterprise Rosmorport, which is subordinate to Rosmorrechflot, are responsible for implementing this item of the plan.
Last year, Rosmorport had issues with finding a contractor to carry out dredging owing to the high cost requested by the contractor. Rosmorport is conducting a new cost examination and expects to announce in early March 2021 a repeat tender for dredging the terminal.
"We would like to announce the tender at the beginning of March 2021, so that there would be a winner at the beginning of May who would physically begin work on July 1. According to our estimates, if work begins on July 1, then the dredging could be completed by the end of December, or definitely by the end of February 2022. Then inspection work would begin, and the facility would be created toward the middle of 2022," Rosmorport CEO Andrei Lavrischev said during an interview with the Kommersant publication.
"The contract for adjusting the project was signed with JSC GT Morstroy, and the material draft design will be completed by the end of November. We hope that a new cost appears by that time. The passage of all inspections ends on February 28," Lavrischev said.
Rosmorport's CEO does not rule out possible issues owing to the lack of allocated funds for dredging. "For now, we believe that funds should be received from the federal budget," Lavrischev said.
It was previously reported that the terminal's cargo turnover would total 22 million tonnes of LNG per year with the capacity to receive 657 gas carriers per year. Ice-class LNG carriers would supply LNG from the Yamal fields to Bechevinskaya Bay, where the gas would be loaded onto conventional LNG carriers and shipped to consumers in the Asia-Pacific Region.
Investments in the construction of the LNG terminal in Kamchatka are estimated at 108 billion rubles. Meantime, private investment in the construction of floating storage facilities and onshore infrastructure facilities is estimated at 69.5 billion rubles, with public funding for the ship approach channel and maritime navigation safety facilities estimated at 38.5 billion rubles.