Gazprom Gas Hub Set for State Support
Russian development bank VEB may invest up to rubles 111bn ($1.7bn) in Gazprom’s planned gas processing and LNG complex in Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea shore, its chairman Igor Shuvalov said on August 29.
VEB is currently the project's only creditor, Shuvalov said after a meeting of the bank's supervisory board.
“We must prepare the project so that it is attractive to other investors and other lenders,” he said, according to the government’s website. He added that the bank would invest up to a limit of 111bn ($1.7bn) in the scheme, which Gazprom estimated in March would cost rubles 700bn in total.
Prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, also present at the meeting, expressed support for the state playing an active role in the development. “It’s big and expensive,” he said. “[The project] certainly requires careful attention from the state, taking into account that this project cannot kick off without it.”
Gazprom took a final investment decision in March with private partner RusGazDobycha on developing a complex that could process up to 45bn m3/yr of gas, after axing a similar project it was working on with Shell. The cluster of facilities will annually produce 13mn mt of LNG, 4mn tonnes of ethane, more than 2.2mn tonnes of LPG and 20bn m3 of treated gas. Its launch is scheduled for 2023. Shell had wanted to keep the LNG operations separate from any processing plant.