Arctic thaw boosts bottom line for Russian energy firm
The polar ice cap is melting, and if executives at the Russian energy company Novatek feel guilty about profiting from that, they do not let it be known in public. From this windswept shore of the Yurkharovskoye gas field in the Arctic Ocean, where Novatek owns enormous natural gas deposits, a stretch of thousands of kilometres of ice-free water leads to China. The company intends to ship the gas directly there.
The polar ice cap is melting, and if executives at the Russian energy company Novatek feel guilty about profiting from that, they do not let it be known in public.
"If we don't sell them the fuel, somebody else will," said Novatek spokesman Mikhail Lozovoi.
Novatek, in partnership with the French energy company Total and the China National Petroleum Corp, is building a US$20 billion liquefied natural gas plant on the central Arctic coast of Russia.
It is one of the first major energy projects to take advantage of the summer thawing of the Arctic caused by global warming.
The plant, called Yamal LNG, would send gas to Asia along the sea lanes known as the Northeast Passage, which opened for regular international shipping only four years ago.
"It's a reality of what is available today, and commercially it is a route that cuts cost," said Emily Stromquist, a global energy analyst at the Eurasia Group.