Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - After a senior management at gas producer Gazprom proposed a plan to broaden the payment arrangement, maj...
 |
| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - After a senior management at gas producer Gazprom proposed a plan to broaden the payment arrangement, major Asian consumers of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) claimed they have not yet received a request to pay for deliveries in Russian roubles.
The idea for a rouble payment comes only days after Russia attempted to shut down the Sakhalin-2 LNG project in response for Western sanctions, which caused supply concerns for major consumers including Japan and South Korea.
As its economy is locked off from the global financial system and is currently experiencing the worst crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has already insisted that European customers of oil and gas make payments in roubles. Receiving money in roubles for energy exports enables Moscow to get over sanctions and fund its conflict in Ukraine.
The Interfax news agency cited Kirill Polous, a senior manager, as saying that Russian gas company Gazprom has proposed expanding its rouble-for-gas programme to include liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Russian rouble payments for LNG shipments have not yet been requested, according to spokespeople for South Korea's state-run Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS) and Japan's largest LNG importer JERA.
The Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, in which Gazprom, Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi Corp. each share a 50 percent stake, has long-term contracts with both businesses.
With 40 billion cubic metres of supercooled gas produced annually, primarily by Sakhalin-2 and Novatek's Yamal LNG, Russia provides around 8% of the world's LNG supply.
Japanese utilities, which are consuming 60 percent of the output from the Sakhalin-2 project, are the facility's top customers for LNG, followed by the government-run Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS) of South Korea and the CPC of Taiwan.
According to the KOGAS spokeswoman, 6 percent of South Korea's LNG imports come from Russian sources.
When asked if the city gas supplier had received a request for rouble payment, another Japanese buyer, Tokyo Gas, refuses to comment, citing a confidentiality clause in its Sakhalin-2 LNG agreement.
The five-year agreement for state-owned refiner CPC to purchase LNG directly from Russia has expired, according to Taiwan's Economy Ministry.
The corporation has already identified alternatives, the government continued, "so there are no problems with rouble acquisition or settlement." Refinitiv data indicates that CPC most recently imported two cargoes from Sakhalin and Yamal that discharged in June.
China's CNPC, Gazprom Marketing & Trading, Naturgy, Novatek, and TotalEnergies are a few of the major long-term LNG purchasers from the Yamal project.
According to Tilak Doshi, managing director of Doshi Consulting, the idea shouldn't be taken as a surprise because it would force Gazprom to charge all payments for gas, whether it is delivered by pipes or LNG, in roubles at its discretion.
He continued, "It appears that the Russian 'gas for roubles' programme was largely geared against the EU and U.S. for their unilateral expropriation of Russian foreign exchange reserves, and not at its Asian LNG clients such as South Korea and Japan who are significant buyers of Russia's LNG.
