Novatek ready to offer LNG, technology to African countries
MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - Novatek is ready to offer African partners its own liquefied natural gas technology and LNG itself for power generation, the Russian gas producer's deputy CEO, Sergei Solovyov, said at the third Russia-Africa Summit.
"We are interested in a long-term partnership and are ready to look jointly at specific projects and locations," he said.
He said the market in question would be about 20-30 million tonnes in the near future, taking into account pent-up demand, or about 7% of the global LNG market. "Hardly any of this demand is covered by contracts or terminals. The weakest link here is countries without access to the sea," he said. "Almost a third of the continent has no access to ports and depends on its neighbors. Those countries have the lowest levels of access to electricity on the planet - South Sudan, Chad, Malawi, Ethiopia. The reason is not the lack of demand as such, but routes. Energy resource goes through someone else's port and someone else's infrastructure. And each link costs money, time and risk. All routes are tied to the coast," Solovyev said.
"In the north, the deep-water ports of Morocco and Egypt play a key role. In the west, the ports of Senegal, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo are vital arteries. In the east, the Kenyan coast is strategically important, and in the southeast, the port systems of South Africa and Mozambique. Any solution for landlocked countries must begin on a neighbor's coast and be fundamentally regional. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan lie behind Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia behind South Africa and Burkina Faso and Niger behind Togo," he said. Such an approach could be scaled up not only for the landlocked market but also to meet the needs of neighboring coastal states, he said.
Gazprom Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov said that group companies also possessed the expertise to develop technologies to process gas, gas condensate and oil, and to manufacture reagents, sorbents and key equipment. "And we are ready to consider joint projects [with African partners] in prospecting, exploration and production of hydrocarbons, transportation, gas storage, gasification, development of gas consumption, power generation, oil and gas processing and development of gas vehicle fuel infrastructure. Gazprom is open to dialog, and ready for mutually beneficial cooperation," he said.
