Yokogawa to Control Russia’s Yamal LNG Facilities

As the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) activities continue, Russia is a major player, with one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves and many LNG projects underway. Based in the estuary of Siberia’s Ob River, which is ice-bound nine months of the year, the Yamal LNG Project is set to be one of the largest industrial undertakings in the Arctic. Yokogawa Europe Solutions will supply integrated control and safety systems (ICSS) for the LNG plant and other facilities on Russia’s Yamal Peninsula.

The Yamal LNG Project is being led by JSC Yamal LNG, a strategic alliance between Novatek (80%), Russia’s largest independent oil and gas company, and Total (20%), a major French energy company. As part of this project, a major integrated liquefaction complex will be built that will have a design production capacity of 16.5 million tons a year. The three process trains that will make up this complex will have an annual production output of 5.5 million tons each, and are planned to be commissioned in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The project will eventually involve the drilling of more than 200 wells, and will include the commissioning of 16 icebreaker tankers, able to carry 170,000 m³ of LNG each.

Yokogawa will supply Centum VP integrated production control systems, ProSafe-RS safety instrumented systems, Exaquantum plant information management systems, PRM integrated device management packages for the monitoring and diagnosis of plant equipment, analytical systems, analyzer shelters, and operator training systems. Yokogawa will be responsible for delivery, engineering, installation, commissioning and operator training.

With systems in use at 47 gas liquefactions plants and 42 LNG receiving terminals around the world, Yokogawa first got a foothold in the Russian market in 1993 and launched a full-scale business there in 1997. It is estimated that the Yamal LNG Project will be Yokogawa’s largest order ever for a natural gas project in Russia.