Novatek has recently reached a production milestone at its medium-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Vysotsk.
Cryogas-Vysotsk has produced its two millionth ton since it launched operations in April 2019, Novatek said in a short statement released on June 21.
The 2018-built 18,000-cbm, Coral EnergICE, owned by Dutch shipping firm Anthony Veder and chartered by Finland’s Gasum, loaded the milestone cargo.
Novatek did not reveal any additional information.
According to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue, Coral EnergICE delivered a cargo of LNG last week to the small Manga LNG terminal in Finland’s Tornio, operated by a joint venture in which Gasum has a stake. The vessel was on Monday located off Sweden’s Visby.
The Vysotsk facility has a capacity of 660 thousand tons of LNG per year, but it has been producing LNG above its nameplate capacity.
Novatek operates the facility with a 51 percent share while Gazprombank holds the rest.
Its infrastructure includes a 42,000-cbm LNG storage tank and also an offloading berth designed to handle carriers with a capacity of up to 30,000 cbm.
Moreover, the plant mainly sends LNG to the countries of the Baltic Sea Region, including Finland and Sweden.
Gasum said in May that Gazprom Export, a unit of Gazprom, had cut pipeline gas supplies to Finland under a long-term deal due to a dispute related to ruble payments.
Following this, Finland started buying more LNG from the Vysotsk facility, several Russian media reports cited Novatek’s chief Leonid Mikhelson as saying this earlier this month.