Gazprom GAZP.MM, Russia’s largest natural gas company, plans to launch two more processing lines at the Amur gas processing plant early next year, Vitaly Markelov, deputy head of the company told the Russian TASS news agency on Monday.

“Our plans are to launch two more lines at the beginning of next year, and by 2025 we should launch all six lines and reach their design capacity,” the TASS state news agency cited Markelov as saying.

The Interfax news agency cited Markelov as saying that Gazprom has already reopened two fire-damaged lines. Markelov said the plant has fared well after the German industrial-gases group Linde LIN.N left the project.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Linde, the world’s largest industrial gases company, said it was suspending all business development activities in Russia, ceasing supply to certain customers, and divesting industrial assets to reduce its footprint in the country.

The Amur gas processing plant in Russia’s Far East, launched by President Vladimir Putin in 2019, aims to help supply natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline and to process 42 billion cubic metres of gas per year.

The plant was to also help raise Russia’s share of the global market for helium.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry)