OREANDA-NEWS. Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee held at the Company's headquarters a meeting dedicated to the Company's promising liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, namely LNG plants in the Primorye Territory and Leningrad Region.

It was noted that the Vladivostok-LNG project with a minimum annual capacity of 15 million tons was progressing on schedule, with the first train to be commissioned in 2018.

A special-purpose company - Gazprom LNG Vladivostok - is being set up now for the purposes of the project. VNIPIgazdobycha was chosen as the general designer of the LNG plant. Work is underway on design specifications.

Gazprom compiled a list of potential strategic partners, whose overall stake in the project might amount to 49 per cent, provided they purchased at least 6 million tons of LNG to be produced within the project. In addition, working meetings were held with several companies capable of building the LNG plant under an EPC contract, with emphasis placed on their interest in the project.

Work is in progress on the preparation of a resource base for the Vladivostok-LNG project. This year will see the commissioning of the Kirinskoye field offshore Sakhalin. In 2013 and 2014 four exploratory wells will be constructed at the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field for preparing it for commercial development. It is planned to perform large-scale 3D seismic surveys and build several prospecting wells at the Ayashsky and Vostochno-Odoptinsky blocks within the Sakhalin III project.

Pro-active efforts are being made to market the gas of the Vladivostok-LNG project and talks are underway with potential customers in Asia-Pacific.

Gazprom started implementing another LNG plant project. To be constructed in the Leningrad Region, the plant will have an annual capacity of up to 10 million tons of LNG. Preliminary feasibility studies underpinning the economic viability of the project are already over and a basic technical concept is developed. At the moment, two construction sites for the LNG plant are under review. The first train is planned to be operational in 2018.

The meeting resulted in assigning tasks related to developing an Investment Rationale to be completed in the first half of 2014, performing a feasibility study of the construction options and devising a comprehensive Action Plan for the project.