Economical prospects of advancement in liquefied natural gas production

Russia is one of the world’s top holders and producers of natural gas. The feature of the gas industry in the country is the long distance between the gas fields, either in operation or planned for the development, and the gas product markets. The traditional pipeline supply of gas to consumers (mostly in Europe) greatly limits diversification of the export deliveries and has a number of risks, especially under conditions of sanction pressure and volatile demand of natural gas in Europe. The solution to this problem may be the more intensive development of the liquefied natural gas industry for Russia to expand the gas marketing geography, improve flexibility of the gas export, and to strengthen the country’s position in the hydrocarbon market. The article gives the review of the world market of liquefied natural gas (LNG), analyzes new large LNG projects in USA and Australia and identifies economic trends in the immediate future projects. The situation in the LNG plant construction in Russia for the period from 2017 to 2025 is discussed in detail. The projects to be implemented in the short run include Sakhalin-2 (expansion), Yamal and Baltic. The potential lines of export of Russian LNG are mostly countries in Asia–Pacific. The methodical approaches to the integrated appraisal of LNG projects in Russia are formulated.