Gazprom Marketing and Trading signs Heads of Agreements with Tamar upstream consortium
Gazprom Marketing & Trading Switzerland AG and Levant LNG Marketing Corporation executed the Heads of Agreement (HOA), outlining the main terms of an exclusive offtake arrangement from Tamar floating LNG project for a 20 year period. The aim of the future deal is to expand Gazprom's LNG marketing and trading portfolio, the company reports.
The agreement follows an earlier Letter of Intent signed between the two parties in March 2012.
The Tamar FLNG project is based on feed gas from Tamar and Dalit gas fields offshore Israel, in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, being developed by the Tamar upstream consortium (Noble Energy Mediterranean, Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration, Isramco Negev-2 and Dor Gas). In November 2011 Tamar Partners signed an agreement with DSME, NextDecade and D&H Solutions to initiate joint development and implementation of a floating LNG facility scheduled for commissioning in 2017 with an estimated annual output of 3mtpa. Shortly after the midstream project company, Levant LNG Marketing Corporation, was established to conduct discussions with potential LNG offtakers.
The signing took place at the DSME headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.
Vitaly Vasiliev, CEO of Gazprom Marketing & Trading Limited, said: “This is an important milestone for strengthening Gazprom’s position in the global LNG market. We are excited to work on making this project a success alongside our partners. We are confident that this deal will not only help strengthen and diversify Gazprom’s LNG portfolio, but also help GM&T build on our success in the Asia-Pacific region, where we have recently closed long and medium-term deals with numerous counterparties in India and North East Asia.”
Gazprom Marketing & Trading Limited (GM&T) is a UK-registered wholly-owned subsidiary of the Gazprom Group, the world’s largest gas company by asset base, accounting for 17% of the world’s total natural gas reserves and for about 70% of natural gas reserves in Russia. GM&T is headquartered in London and was established in 1999 to manage Gazprom's marketing and trading activities in the liberalised markets of Europe. Since 2005 GM&T has been responsible for all aspects of marketing, shipping and trading LNG for the Gazprom Group and can now offer 24-hour coverage of the market between London, Houston and Singapore.
In 2011 Gazprom Marketing & Trading Switzerland (GM&T’s Swiss affiliate) was established as a base for further development of oil, LPG and LNG trading with an advantage of Switzerland’s central European location.