US, Russian Energy Majors Join to Push LNG in India, Japan

Russia's energy major Rosneft and US ExxonMobil plan to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in a consortium with Indian and Japanese partners, spreading the estimated $15 billion cost, Reuters reported.

The report said that  the LNG production project will come up in partnership with Japan’s SODECO and India’s ONGC Videsh.

All four companies are partners in the Sakhalin-1 fields from which the requisite gas for the facility will be drawn, however Rosneft and Exxon had previously planned to build the facility without the other partners.

As well as spreading the costs among more stakeholders, the broader involvement of the participants may mitigate sanctions risk, according to the report.

The benefits of the broader partnership include not only spreading the cost of the project, which has been estimated to be US$15 billion, but it may also help with the mitigation of sanctions risk.

Russia has an ambitious plan doubling its global LNG market share to 20 percent in the next decade. The country has two other LNG plants – Novatek (NVTK.ME)'s Yamal LNG and Gazprom's Sakhalin-2.