DESIGNS for Russia's first LNG carrier have begun in St Petersburg.
Although it is not clear whether the ship will ever be built, Vladimir Spiridopoulo, general director of leading Russian ship designer Severnoye PKB, said it has agreed with the French designer GTT for LNG vessel technology to help prepare a feasibility plan.
He said government-owned tanker operator Sovcomflot might commission a single LNG carrier from the Admiralty Shipyard of St Petersburg with capacity for 80,000m³ with an estimated cost of $250 million.
Sovcomflot already operates six LNG carriers, all of them built outside Russia in South Korea, Japan and Sweden.
The carriers currently load Russian LNG at the Aniva Bay terminal at Sakhalin for deliveries in the Pacific.
Mikhail Perfilov, maritime specialist for Petroleum Argus in Moscow, noted that LNG carriers must be built to gas field and loading specifications.
The problem for this project, he noted, is that Gazprom is putting off production at its new Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea, and start-up of the plant to convert the gas to LNG.
Admiralty and Sovcomflot have been discussing the project for 18 months, but neither has expressed commitment as yet.
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