ruben.maritime

MOSCOW 14 December – Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas giant, is to acquire shareholding control of the Sakhalin-2 gas and LNG project from Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, following the resumption last week of negotiations with Shell. The outcome has been widely reported, but the terms are still under negotiation, according to Dmitri Medvedev, chief of the Kremlin staff and chairman of the Gazprom board. Russian reports suggest that Gazprom will not pay cash up front. Instead, it will reportedly defer payment for its stake until the project starts operation, and cash is generated from LNG shipments and sales. This suggests that the takeover will oblige Shell to accept an audit of its actual project costs, instead of its estimated $22Bn in capital expenditure; and that the income that would otherwise have flowed to Shell under the old production sharing agreement will be diverted to Gazprom, and then paid to Shell for shares. Neither side is keen to acknowledge publicly what price has been tabled. This was clearly one of the sticking-points when Russian energy minister Victor Khristenko said early this week that the talks were “difficult”.

Etiquetas: gas, international maritime affairs, shipping business

SEOUL 12 December – South Korea, which is one of the leading importers of LNG in Asia, is estimated to import up to 32M tonnes of liquefied natural gas by 2015. Last year, Korea imported 25M tonnes of LNG. Power utility Korea Gas Corp and steelmaker Posco account for the bulk of the imports. Together they are estimated to import up to 22M tonnes in 2007. The study was published by Korea Gas Corp, which was tasked by lawmaker Cho Jung Shik of the ruling Uri Party. Newbuilding and ship owner sources told Fairplay that at least 10 additional LNG ships would be needed to meet the projected rise in imports.

Etiquetas: gas, LNG, shipping business