Gazprom to buy Shell out of Sakhalin LNG project

There are three opponents of Russia’s strategy to become a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter — the Western Gray Whale, the US Government, and Gazprom. Until this week, and for quite different reasons, all three, including the LNG producer itself, Gazprom, — Russia’s energy champion, the world’s biggest energy exporter — have succeeded in delaying and redirecting plans to start shipments from the first of Russia’s LNG plants at Aniva Bay on Sakhalin Island, in the Fareast; and to postpone indefinitely drawing-board plans and joint venture agreements to build the second and third LNG plants on the Baltic, and to the north, on the Barents Sea.