Gazprom Export, Linde sign Helium SPA
German Linde Group and Gazprom Export have signed a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) for the offtake of first helium from Gazprom in 2021, it said March 13. The deal is linked to the start of first gas from the Chayandinskoe field, one of the sources of gas for the Power of Siberia pipeline to take 38bn m³/yr of eastern Siberian gas to China and Russia's far east.
The German industrial gases giant will buy significant amounts of helium from Gazprom’s new Amur helium plant being built as part of the Power of Siberia gas project. Without mentioning any specific volume Gazprom said the helium production capacity of Amur will be 60mn m³/yr.
The new production facility is in the vicinity of the city of Blagoveshchensk near the Chinese border and is due to be commissioned in parallel with the start of the flow of natural gas extracted from the Chayandinskoe field along the new gas transportation route Yakutia — Khabarovsk — Vladivostok.
Linde’s engineering division is the licensor of the cryogenic gas separation technology at the Amur gas processing plant (GPP) and will engineer and supply units for ethane and natural gas liquids (NGLs) extraction and nitrogen rejection, as well as for helium purification, liquefaction and storage. The project represents a unique logistics undertaking with the plant being located some 1,500 km from the nearest port at Vladivostok.
Gazprom’s Amur GPP will have six production lines with 7bn m3/yr each. Two process lines will come online in 2021, while the other four will be consecutively put in operation before the end of 2024. The GPP is expected to reach 42bn m³/yr of natural gas and 60mn m³/yr helium production capacity by 2025. Other products will be ethane, propane, butane and pentane-hexane fractions.