Gazprom Looking to Offer Small Scale LNG Solutions to China

Gazprom Exports, the exporting division of Gazprom, is exploring the idea of building small scale LNG plants in Russia’s Far East to cater to Chinese market.

The company is closely monitoring the development of the ssLNG (small scale LNG) market in China and in addition to the infrastructure for natural gas supply is studying the opportunity of building ssLNG plants in the Far East, Igor Maynitskiy, Head of LNG Export Division said in July edition of company’s corporate magazine

“We are also looking at Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean markets,” Maynitskiy said. 

Geographically, Gazprom Exports is focusing primarily on the European market. Firstly, the infrastructure for ssLNG already exists in Europe, Maynitskiy said. Secondly, stricter legislation on shipping emissions in the Baltic and North Sea zones will help stimulate the development of ssLNG in Europe. So far, the company has been exporting ssLNG to Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic countries. But it intends to widen its geographical reach.  

There are now four export-oriented ssLNG plants in Russia: one in the Kaliningrad region, two near St. Petersburg (Peterhof and Kingisepp) and one in Pskov, the latter was put into operation in May 2016. The total capacity of these plants is 68,000 t/yr.