Shell Shocks Again

CEO of Royal Dutch/Shell Philip Watts says that supplies of LNG from the Sakhalin-2 project are expected to begin in 2005, instead of the scheduled 2007. In addition, Watts says the fields of Sakhalin-2 will be producing year round from 2006. Currently the project is interrupted in the autumn and winter period for six months on average.

Sakhalin Energy, operator of Sakhalin-2 project, is currently building an LNG plant with a capacity of 9.6 million tons a year in Prigorodnoe (Sakhalin). It is planned that hydrocarbons from the Piltun-Astokhskoe and Lunskoe offshore fields will be transported via the underwater pipeline to the coastal technological facility in the north of Sakhalin and after that will be transported to the south of Sakhalin to the oil terminal and LNG plant in Prigorodnoe.