Transport projects of Yamal received support from deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation

The visiting session of the Council of the State Duma of the Russian Federation under the chairmanship of Vyacheslav Volodin took place in Sabetta with participation of the leaders of factions of political parties in the State Duma, the chairmen of specialized committees, the governor of Yamal Dmitry Kobylkin, representatives of the company “NOVATEK”. The issue of fulfillment of large investment projects on the example of “Yamal LNG” was the main topic.

According to the chairman of the State Duma on the opening of the session, the President of the country Vladimir Putin in his message to the Federal Assembly set strategic tasks, which can be solved only in the case if economy increases and becomes more effective. As the chairman reminds, “Yamal LNG” gives 0.12% of growth of the whole gross domestic product of the country. In other words, there are ten such projects, and growth of the gross domestic product of the country will be doubled. As Vyacheslav Volodin underlines, fulfillment of the project “Yamal LNG” will allow Russia to come to the new market of liquefied natural gas, where Qatar, Australia and Malaysia work. According to Vyacheslav Volodin, this project forms new architecture of external trade relations on the LNG market. “With introduction of the project we receive the opportunity to be among the leaders in LNG deliveries to the world markets”, as Volodin said. He focuses attention on social significance of the project – the startup of “Yamal LNG” has already given more than 100 thousand working places, a quarter of this number is on enterprises situated in the settlement Sabetta. Dmitry Kobylkin informed the participants of the sitting about specifics of the region. More than 80% of the whole Russian gas or the fifth part of the world’s gas is extracted here. The region takes leading positions in the country per capita on the following indexes: the amount of investments, the gross regional product, industrial production. More than a half of the whole gross product of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation is on the account of Yamal. 71% of investments of the Russian Arctic are allocated to projects of Yamal. Their amount exceeds one trillion rubles, as the head of the region says. According to the governor, Yamal is included to the group of regions with permanent natural increase in population and has the lowest death rate of population among arctic neighbors. And in the result of complex policy on preservation and sustainable development of indigenous ethnic minorities of the North the number of true keepers of the Arctic in Yamal grew on 12%. Many of them still conduct traditional lifestyle. As the head of the arctic region notes, now the region goes on the way of forming of the powerful LNG-cluster. On the Gydan peninsula the company NOVATEK is laying the new plant “Arctic LNG 2”. All this, of course, will change balance of forces on the world LNG market, will require for effective decisions on transportation of fuel with consideration of geopolitical risks. Fulfillment of these projects has a powerful effect for the whole country: one working place at creation of such innovative productions in the Arctic gives about 40 new working places. Hundreds of Russian enterprises from many regions of Russia participate in the production chain, as the governor notes. The governor of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug focused special attention of the deputies to the fact that for the economic breakthrough, about which the president of the country speaks, it is necessary to develop capacities of ports, to load the Northern Sea Route and to create full-fledged transport infrastructure: “The railroad project “The Northern Latitudinal Railway” will become the main terrestrial artery here. It will open the way to new extractive fields, which were hard-to-reach earlier, will decrease the distance of cargo deliveries from Western Siberia to ports of the Baltic Sea, will unload the Trans-Siberian Railway”. As the head of the region notes, the railroad corridor Bovanenkovo-Sabetta with an approach to the seaport is the next key link and continuation of the Northern Latitudinal Railway. To develop Bovanenkovo field Gazprom built the railroad line from the station Obskaya. The distance between Bovanenkovo and Sabetta makes 170 kilometers. The governor is sure that this is the state obligation to bring the railroad line towards the strategic harbor. The project documentation was elaborated in cooperation with the investor. The sector Bovanenkovo-Sabetta will connect the Unified transport system of Russia with the Northern Sea Route, will open the way for many Russian regions to the World Ocean, to markets of Europe and Asia. Products transported to the port, amounts of the plants “Yamal LNG”, “Arctic LNG 2” and also transportation of oil from Novy Port will allow making cargo traffic on the Northern Sea Route up to 80 million tonnes per year. Thus, it will solve the task set by the Head of the State in his yearly message, as Dmitry Kobylkin says. The director general of the company “Yamal LNG” Yevgeniy Kot informed the participants of the sitting about history, stages and prospects of development of the project. He began to tell from the start of building of the arctic port, laying of which, as we should remind, had taken place in summer of 2012 with participation of the minister for transport Maksim Sokolov, Dmitry Kobylkin and Leonid Mikhelson. In the conclusion Yevgeniy Kot told about the startup of “Yamal LNG”, the command to which was given by the President of Russia. Detailed discussion of transportation and infrastructural projects presented by the head of the arctic region took place on the sitting of the Council of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. In particular, the opinion was expressed that the Northern Latitudinal Railway and the railroad line Bovanenkovo-Sabetta will quicken development of northern territories and in considerable degree will accelerate general economic development of the country. In particular, according to Vyacheslav Volodin, this project will make the country more effective, more competitive and stronger, and in the result, citizens will live better. The participants of the conference, including the heads of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the leaders of factions, the chairmen of committees, expressed unanimous reasoned support to the transport projects of Yamal. Vyacheslav Volodin informs that the working group will be gathered in the State Duma. It will be busy with analysis of concrete suggestions on legislative solving of problems standing before public-private partnership of such priority projects as “Yamal LNG” and others. The working group will be headed by deputies of the chairman of the State Duma Sergey Neverov and Olga Epifanova. The group will also include heads of specialized committees of the State Duma – on natural resources, transport and energy, on affairs of the North and ecology. In addition, Vyacheslav Volodin entrusted the specialized committees to prepare questions on the given topics, which the deputies can ask to corresponding ministers within “government hour” at the State Duma. Also it was decided to prepare suggestions on the project of building of the railroad sector Bovanenkovo-Sabetta for sending them to the Government of the Russian Federation.