‘LNG bunkering in Russia has begun a new chapter’: Gazpromneft Marine Bunker

[1]

On 13 August 2021, Gazpromneft Marine Bunker, a subsidiary of Russia’s third largest oil and gas producer, Gazprom Neft, announced it had completed final testing of its first ever LNG bunkering vessel, the 5,800 cm Dmitry Mendeleev, designed and built by Singapore-based shipbuilder Keppel Offshore & Marine.

As it prepares to begin to carry out ship-to-ship LNG bunkering operations at St Petersburg, Ust-Luga, Primorsk and other Russian ports in the Baltic Sea, the delivery of the vessel marks “a new chapter” in Gazpromneft Marine Bunker’s strategy for LNG as bunker fuel, which has been in the making for nearly ten years, the company’s CEO, Alexei Medvedev, tells LNG Business Review in this exclusive interview.

While the Covid-19 pandemic has caused some delays in the overall growth of LNG bunkering, Medvedev is confident that the sector has “a strong future,” chiefly because the demand for it is growing and the infrastructure is already well-developed – something that cannot be said for other, non-conventional solutions, such as ammonia, methanol and liquid hydrogen, he stresses.