ST PETERSBURG, Russia) - Russia's Novatek has officially launched its second liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant as it aims to expand further in the frozen gas trade, the company's Chief Executive Leonid Mikhelson said on Wednesday.
Russia, one of the world's top gas producers, aims to be a major player in LNG and to export as much as one of the global leaders in the market, Qatar. So far, Russia has two LNG plants in operation: Gazprom-led Sakhalin-2 on the Far East and Novatek's Yamal LNG, on the Arctic Yamal peninsula.
Novatek, along with Gazprombank , has built a new LNG plant in the Baltic Sea port of Vysotsk but of a smaller scale than Yamal LNG and the Sakhalin-2. Vysotsk's first line has a capacity of 660,000 tonnes of frozen gas per year.
Mikhelson said on Wednesday that Novatek plans to expand the Vysotsk capacity and the second train is planned to produce over 1.1 million tonnes of LNG per year.
President Vladimir Putin, addressing Mikhelson via a video-link, said that the second line is expected to be launched at the end of 2020.
"Russia will consistently build up its gas liquefying capacities to carve out the niche that our country deserves in this field," Putin said.
Refinitiv Eikon shipping data showed earlier this month that Novatek has already sent a number of cargoes from Vysotsk to Lithuania, Finland and Sweden.
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya Writing by Anton Kolodyazhnyy/Katya Golubkova Editing by Maria Kiselyova and Elaine Hardcastle) ((anton.kolodyazhnyy@thomsonreuters.com; +74957751242))
