Yamal LNG plant

Overview:

• Yamal LNG plant.
• Project company Yamal LNG, which is owned by Novatek (50.1%), China National Petroleum (CNPC) (20%), Total (20%), and Silk Road Fund (9.9%), is developing upstream production facilities and a natural gas liquefaction plant in the Yamal Peninsula in Russia.
• Novatek is Russia's second largest independent gas producer and is leading Yamal's development; state-owned CNPC is China's largest integrated energy company; Total is a French oil and gas major; and Silk Road Fund is a Chinese state-owned investment fund which bought equity in Yamal from Novatek for €1.087 billion in March 2016.
• The Yamal project will extract gas - through more than 200 wells - from the South-Tambeyskoye field in Siberia and liquefy it for export.
• The project will comprise three liquefication trains, which are being built in stages and are scheduled to be operational consecutively in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
• Yamal is expected to have a capacity of 16.5 million metric tonnes of LNG a year. 
• Yamal's sponsors have secured $19 billion in project financing to fund the project's development. 
• Russian sovereign wealth fund National Welfare Fund of Russia (NWF) has contributed R150 billion ($2.3 billion) towards the project by buying bonds in Yamal LNG.    
• Sberbank and Gazprombank are providing €3.6 billion in a 15 year euribor six-month plus 4.7% loan. 
• China's state-owned lenders Bank of China and China Development Bank are providing more than $12 billion of the project financing in two 15 year loans (one of €9.34 billion and one of ¥9.8 billion, signed April 29, 2016) with interest rates beginning at euribor six-month plus 3.30% and increasing when the project enters full commission. 
• Intesa Sanpaolo is providing a €750 million 14.5 year euribor six-month plus 2.5% loan (signed December 2016), which is insured by Italy and France's export credit agencies, SACE and COFACE respectively.
• Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) is providing €200 million (signed December 2016). 
• In February 2017, Russia's Minister for Energy reported the entirety of the Yamal project was 75% complete, with the first stage of the project closer to 90% complete, and Total said it may receive LNG exports from Yamal in October 2017. 

Ben Naylor - Regional editor