MOSCOW (Reuters) – Production of liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as oil and gas, declined in 2024 in Russia’s Pacific island of Sakhalin in 2024, according to local administration.
Production of LNG at Sakhalin Energy project, led by Kremlin-controlled Gazprom, declined last year according to the administration, by around 2% to 10.2 million metric tons, or around a third of Russia’s total.
The administration also said that oil and natural gas output at Sakhalin 1 project fell by 9.8% from 2023, without providing production figures.
“Oil and gas production has had a steady downward trend since 2020, which is due to the natural process of ‘aging’ of fields,” the administration said on its website.
Gazprom owns almost 77.5% in Sakhalin Energy located in the southern tip of Sakhalin. Other shareholders are Japanese companies Mitsui (12.5%) and Mitsubishi (10%).
Following Moscow’s decision to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Shell left the project, following the path of numerous Western businesses.
ExxonMobil also left Russia in 2022. Moscow set a deadline of January 1 2026 for the sale of ExxonMobil’s 30% stake in Sakhalin 1.
Russia’s Rosneft and India’s ONGC Videsh have 20% stakes each in the project, while Japan’s SODECO controls a 30% stake.
(Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva and Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by David Evans)
