You're reading: Gazprom calls off search for LNG plant designer for Shtokman phases II, III

Moscow - LLC Gazprom Dobycha Shelf has halted its request for proposals for designing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant for the second and third phases of the development of the Shtokman gas condensate deposit, the company said.

The procedure was begun early in February. The contract cap was set at 2.25 billion rubles including VAT. The results were to have been announced not later than April 5, but the tender was put off several times.

It is expected that the facility will have four production lines.

According to the initial documentation, the plant’s capacity will be around 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year. The rigs involved in each of the two phases will be producing 23.4 bcm annually, with 2.3 bcm going to meet the needs of the Murmansk region. Gas will also go to business and power generation.

The Shtokman field is located in the central part of the shelf in the Russian waters of the Barents Sea. It has 3.9 trillion cubic meters of C1 gas reserves and 56.1 million tonnes of C1 gas condensate reserves. Gazprom (51%), Total (25%) and Statoil (24%) signed a shareholder agreement in February 2008 to create Shtokman Development, which was tasked with financing and building infrastructure to deliver Shtokman gas to the shore and liquefy it as part of the project’s first phase.

Gazprom would like to attract foreign partners to implement the first phase of the project, but the consortium was unable to draft an economically feasible scheme for it. Information about negotiations on the project has not been forthcoming since the middle of last year. Meanwhile, Gazprom continues to work on the second and third phases, which it plans to execute by itself.

French company Technip performed the end engineering design for the LNG plant.