Gazprom JV lets additional contract for Ust-Luga gas processing complex

PJSC Gazprom and JSC RusGazDobycha 50-50 special-purpose venture RusKhimAlyans LLC has let a contract to a consortium of Linde PLC’s Linde Engineering and Rönesans Holding’s Renaissance Heavy Industries (RHI) to deliver engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services on the natural gas liquefaction plant of RusGazDobycha’s planned integrated natural gas processing and liquefaction complex (GPC) to be built as part of the proposed gas processing, liquefaction, and chemical complex for processing ethane-containing gas (CPECG) on the Gulf of Finland near the seaport of Ust-Luga, Leningrad Oblast, Russia (OGJ Online, Mar. 29, 2021; June 10, 2020).

As part of the Sept. 9 contract, the Linde-RHI will supply design works, equipment, and materials, as well as execute construction and installation activities for two LNG production trains with a combined capacity of 13 million tonnes/year (tpy), Gazprom said.

The two trains will be equipped with an unidentified technology to produce LNG codeveloped in Russia by Gazprom and Linde, the operator added.

This latest contract follows RusKhimAlyans June award to the Linde-RHI consortium to deliver engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPCC) services on the GPC’s central processing and off-site installations (OGJ Online, June 7, 2021).

In May, Gazprom announced initial start of construction works on the broader CPECG project—including RusGazDobycha’s GPC, as well as RusGazDobycha subsidiary Baltic Chemical Complex LLC’s (BCC) planned ethane-cracking, or gas chemical, complex—and confirmed the Linde-RHI consortium intended to begin directed construction activities at the GPC by end June (OGJ Online, May 24, 2021).

Project overview

RusKhimAlyans’s GPC of the CPECG initially will receive 45 bcmy of wet natural gas feedstock from Gazprom’s Achimov and Valanginian deposits in the Nadym-Pur-Taz region of the Yamal Peninsula. Later supplies will come from specially allocated ethane-rich natural gas pipelines delivering production from the region’s yet-to-be-developed Tambeyskoye field.

The GPC will produce about 3.6 million tpy of ethane and 1.7 million tpy of LPG, with ethane from the complex to feed nearby BCC’s proposed $13-billion ethane cracking project that—once in operation—will produce more than 3 million tpy of polymers (OGJ Online, Nov. 9, 2020). About 18 bcmy of gas remaining after processing at GPC—including ethane extraction, LPG, and 13 million tpy of LNG—will be exported from the site via Gazprom’s gas transmission lines, according to a May 27 Gazprom presentation.

With its first two production trains still on schedule for startup later this year, GPB’s AGPP comes as part of Gazprom’s implementation of its Eastern Gas Program (EGP) to integrate field developments, pipeline, and natural gas production centers in East Siberia and Russia’s Far East. The AGPP, which will process multicomponent gas it receives from EGP’s Irkutsk and Yakutia gas production centers via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, specifically will support Gazprom’s commitment to supply 38 bcmy of Russian natural gas into China over 30 years (OGJ Online, May 29, 2020).