Sakhalin Project, a fully-owned unit of the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom, will acquire Shell's 27.5% stake in Sakhalin Energy, the new operator of the Sakhalin-2 LNG project. The purchase was approved by the Russian Government, and Gazprom’s unit will buy the stake in Sakhalin Energy for RUB94.8bn (US$1bn). Gazprom already has a 50% operating stake in the LNG terminal operator and will reach 77.5% of Sakhalin Energy. This announcement by the Russian Government officially nullifies the order that it took in April 2023 on selling the 27.5% stake to the Russian company Novatek, a competitor of Gazprom.
The project used to be owned by Gazprom (50% plus one share), Shell (27.5% minus one share), Mitsui (12.5%) and Mitsubishi (10%). Shell expressed its intention of withdrawing from the project in March 2022 after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In summer 2022, Russia decided to take full control of the project and established a new entity, Sakhalin Energy, as the new operator of the project. Russia had announced that if the foreign companies refused to join the new entity, their stake in the project would be sold to a Russian company. Gazprom, Mitsui and Mitsubishi decided to retain their stakes in the Sakhalin-2 project (a decision that was approved by Russia in August 2022), contrary to Shell.
The Sakhalin-2 LNG liquefaction project, located in the far eastern oblast of Sakhalin, comprises two LNG trains with a total capacity of 10.8 Mt/year that were commissioned in 2009.
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