After treading softly because of Europe's dependence on Russian pipeline gas, the US last week dealt the Russian gas industry its first blow by extending sanctions to Gazprom's giant Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field in the Sea of Okhotsk. That will hit the country's LNG ambitions, as Yuzhno-Kirinskoye was supposed to feed a planned third train at Sakhalin-2, Russia's sole liquefaction plant. Yuzhno-Kirinskoye was officially targeted because it contains both oil and gas, but if some Russian analysts are to be believed, Washington may be preparing to sanction all planned liquefaction projects, primarily the Novatek-led Yamal LNG. That would undermineRussia's goal of hoisting production capacity to 60 million tons per year by 2035 from 10 million tons/yr now,.leaving the global marketing field open to rivals such as the US (WGI Mar.25' 15).
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