Italian oil and gas industry contractor Saipem could lock in a deal with Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer Novatek for Arctic LNG 2 offshore platforms.
Citing sources, Reuters reports the deal could be signed during the week.
Novatek is already looking to build an airport for the Arctic LNG 2 facility and has issued a tender for the construction as well as staffing of the airport.
The deal, that would see the deployment of gravity-based structure platforms that would support the LNG processing units, is reportedly valued at €2.5 billion ($2.84 billion).
Novatek’s second Arctic LNG export project raised a lot of interest and the company has already signed memorandums of understanding with Temasek-owned Pavilion Energy, Japanese and Chinese partners as well as the Saudi Arabian national oil company, Saudi Aramco.
France’s Total has agreed to take a 10 percent stake in the Arctic LNG 2 project with an option for Total to add further 5 percent.
The final investment decision on the Arctic LNG 2 project is expected in 2019.
The facility to be assembled on gravity-based platforms will have an annual production capacity of 19.8 million tons of LNG, with production expected to start in 2022 or 2023.
LNG World News Staff