MOSCOW, May 16. The State Duma adopted in the first reading a government bill allowing the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to subsoil users of the Arctic part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous regions.
The document grants the exclusive right to export LNG to users of subsoil plots on land, wholly or partially located north of 67 degrees north latitude. We are talking about Arctic gas fields in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts. At the same time, the share of the state in the authorized capital of such subsoil users should be more than 50%. Deputy head of the Ministry of Energy of Russia Anastasia Bondarenko in April at a meeting of the State Duma Committee on Energy explained that this concerns «about 36 fields» that are now owned by Rosneft.
As Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at a cabinet meeting in March, the list of fields from which LNG export is allowed will include promising subsoil plots remote from the Unified Gas Supply System, to which it is not economically feasible to connect pipelines. We are talking primarily about the northern territories of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the YNAO, where there are huge reserves of natural gas — in general, about 3 trillion cubic meters.
The decision made will allow increasing annual LNG production to 100 million tons in the next seven years, as well as significantly increasing its exports and generally strengthening Russia's position in the world market, Mishustin emphasized. The bill will help to more actively use the capacities of the Arctic routes and for the transportation of LNG to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.
The document also removes from the scope of the Law «On Gas Export» operations for the bunkering of ships with natural gas in a liquefied state. According to the explanatory note, this will stimulate the use of LNG as a bunker fuel, which is a more environmentally friendly and alternative fuel for sea and river vessels.
Currently, the right to export LNG in Russia belongs to Gazprom (which has a monopoly on the export of pipeline gas), as well as companies with state participation of more than 50%, implementing projects to liquefy natural gas from offshore fields or from fields under the PSA. In addition, Novatek exports LNG on the basis of a subsoil user right, the license for which was issued before January 1, 2013 and provided for the production of liquefied natural gas.
In total, by order of the government of 2014, the right to export LNG belongs to «Gazprom», «Gazprom export», «Gazprom gas oil product holding», «Rosneft», as well as «subsidiaries» of «Novatek» — «Yamal LNG» , Arctic LNG 1, Arctic LNG 2 and Arctic LNG 3.