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Last Updated: Jun 30, 2009 - 8:04:04 AM |
Shell and Sovcomflot have also signed a deal which will see the oil
major charter the state-owned Russian company’s aframax oil tankers.
The “general co-operation agreement” covers wide-ranging potential LNG
shipping projects in Russia, including in the hostile offshore Arctic.
The partners intend to broaden co-operation in future Sakhalin II
project development, joint shipping solutions for gas fields on the
Yamal Peninsula, further improvement of LNG shipping technologies,
including in difficult ice conditions, and development of floating
storage and regasification units for deployment in remote regions of
Russia.
Shell has already been short-listed by Gazprom as a potential candidate
for the development of the vast resources near the Yamal Peninsula.
The latest pact has industrial logic and builds on an existing
relationship in LNG seafarer training and the Sakhalin II project, in
which Shell is a shareholder and for which Sovcomflot provides LNG
carriers.
Shell has an extensive track record in the LNG shipping industry, with
more than 50 vessels under management, while Sovcomflot has been
building a network of relationships with Russian stakeholders,
including the gas giant Gazprom and shipbuilder United Industrial.
Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin said the link between Sovcomflot
and Shell would “allow us to not only use the freight capacity of
Sovcomflot but also think of expanding and improving our own concept of
specialised vessels construction, which, of course, will be in demand
in the nearest future”.
Sovcomflot chief executive Sergey Frank said the pact would combine
Shell’s “profound experience” in the production and the transportation
of LNG with Sovcomflot’s knowledge and technical potential in
delivering cargoes by sea in harsh ice conditions.
Socvomflot is already immersed in Russia’s LNG ambitions through a link
with the nation’s Gazprom gas monopoly.
A Sovcomflot shipmanagement unit, Unicom (Cyprus), provides commercial
management services to Gazprom Global LNG for the vessels that that
company time charters.
Sovcomflot also aims to play a leading role in Gazprom’s Shtokman LNG
project in the Barents Sea which could require as many as 20 LNG
carriers.
Shell and Sovcomflot also signed time-charter agreements under which
the shipping company’s aframax-type tankers would transport the oil
major’s crude from north west Europe and the Mediterranean.
A spokeswoman for Shell said the deal involved one aframax under time
charter and then a contract of affreightment.
Shell is the world’s largest spot market charterer of aframax tankers,
of which Sovcomflot has 38 vessels in its fleet.
Source:Ocnus.net 2009
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