Gazprom eyes LNG ports in US

Gazprom plans to lease or buy stakes in LNG terminals in the United States and possibly Canada, where the company plans to start supplying the fuel.
Gazprom plans to secure medium-term contracts between 2006 and 2009 to supply LNG to the United States. The company plans to partner with North American companies to ensure access to regasification plants that will turn LNG into gas to pump it through pipelines.

Gazprom is in talks with ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, the three largest US oil producers, and Petro-Canada, Canada's third-biggest oil company, about gas production in Russia and LNG supplies to the United States and Canada. The gas company plans to invest $ 10 bn to develop the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea to pump the fuel.
Existing regasification plants in the United States "meet the market demand now," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told in Yamburg, in the Russian Arctic. "But if we talk about foreseen demand by 2010, their capacity won't be enough."

The United States, which expects gas demand to grow 50 % in the next 20 years, has been urging Gazprom to accelerate plans to build an LNG terminal in north-western Russia that could supply the fuel to the United States. At the same time, Gazprom is looking for new markets outside Europe.
Gazprom plans to supply between 3 bn and 5 bn cm of gas to the United States as early as next year by swapping its fuel in Europe for LNG shipments to North America.

Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of gas consumed in Europe, expects to start pumping gas from the Shtokman field in the Arctic in 2010 to make LNG available for direct sales in North America. The offshore field has enough reserves to supply the United States for about four years.
Shell and US Sempra Energy received permits from Mexico for construction of a $ 600 mm LNG regasification terminal to process gas from Russia for sale locally and in California. Shell leads a group of investors, which plans to invest at least $ 10 bn to tap offshore fields in Russia's Pacific to produce LNG. Gazprom's Miller said in June that the company plans to secure a stake in the Shell-led Sakhalin-2 project.

Gazprom is seeking oil and gas exploration projects in Libya in response to the recent lifting of economic sanctions against the North African country. Miller met Abdulla el-Badri, chairman of Libya's state-owned National Oil Corp., to discuss possible joint projects. Gazprombank, majority owned by Gazprom, already owns 20 % of a Libyan exploration project, Miller said.
"Now that the sanctions against Libya are ended, a lot of companies are interested in the Libyan market and possibilities to produce oil and gas," Miller told. "The business environment is stable in the oil and gas industry."