Russia’s Sovcomflot has entered a JV with Nippon Yusen KK, Japan's largest shipping line, to build two LNG tankers to ship gas from Shell's Pacific Ocean fields in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk.
The partners are battling against a Mitsui-led group with Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., South Korea's second-largest shipping line, and Belgian shipper Exmar.
The Russian giant has declared its interest in expanding into the LNG market whether it wins the contract or not due to increasing LNG demand around the world. Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer, has already outlined plans to invest as much as US$15 billion with ConocoPhillips to produce the fuel in the Arctic.
World LNG production is expected more than double to 380 million tons in 2010, according to Algeria's Sonatrach, the world's largest LNG producer last year.
Sakhalin Energy alone will invest at least $10 billion in the Sakhalin-2 project to produce around 9.6 million tones of LNG a year, with the majority destined for the Japanese and South Korean markets.
