Russia’s Novatek officially launched its second liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, Cyrogas-Vysotsk, at the port of Vysotsk in Russia's Leningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea on Thursday.
According to Novatek's announcement, Cyrogas-Vysotsk is a medium-tonnage LNG project, which has an initial design capacity of 660 thousand tons of LNG per annum.
The project’s infrastructure includes a 42 thousand cubic meters LNG storage tank and an offloading berth designed to handle LNG carriers with a capacity of up to 30 thousand cubic meters.
“Cryogas-Vysotsk is our first medium-scale LNG project,' noted Novatek's chairman Leonid Mikhelson, 'Our marketing strategy provides for loading of bunkering vessels, small wholesale LNG sales, and LNG sales as motor fuel to the Baltics, Scandinavia and North-Western Europe markets.'
Mikhelson explained that natural gas used as transport fuel reduces carbon emissions and is in compliance with new environmental standards, including sulfur emissions reductions that have been mandated by IMO 2020 - the International Maritime Organization's global sulfur cap on the shipping industry.
'We see potential to expand our commercial presence in this developing LNG market segment,' he added.
Russia, Europe's top gas supplier and one of the world's top gas producers, aims to become a major global LNG player.
Russia has two LNG plants in operation, Sakhalin-2 in the Far East and Novatek's Yamal LNG on the Arctic Yamal peninsula.
By Murat Temizer
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr