Sakhalin 2, Russia’s new $22 billion liquefied natural gas plant, opened this Wednesday – following Russian interest towards Asia and away from Europe. The plant, constructed on Sakhalin Island north of Japan, has greatly increased Russia’s ability to supply natural gas to their cash rich neighbors to the southeast as financial markets to their west dry up and deals become less lucrative.
Operated by the British-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell, and majority owned by Russia’s Gazprom, the plant will supply five percent of the world’s total liquid natural gas by 2010 and is Russia’s largest energy enterprise supplying Asia. Japan and China are to be the likely recipients of the bulk of the plant’s output, but futures contracts have been made to ship Russian gas as far away as the United States.
Furthermore, Russia’s state-owned oil company, Rosneft, has recently accepted a $25 billion loan from the China Development Bank that will send 300,000 barrels of oil a day to China over the span of 20 years.