German industrial gases and engineering group has signed an agreement with Russian gas giant Gazprom and EPC contractor SRDI Oil & Gas Peton to license its technology for a 1.5 million t/y LNG production, storage and shipment complex plant Gazprom is building in Portovaya on the Baltic seacoast. The plant will liquefy natural gas coming from the nearby compressor station that belongs to Gazprom’s Nord Stream pipeline.

Contract terms were not disclosed, nor was the value of the plant.

The technology to be employed is Linde's LIMUM multi-stage mixed refrigerant process, which uses its proprietary coil wound heat exchangers and is claimed to achieve best-in-class energy efficiency. As part of the arrangement with Peton, Linde will perform basic engineering for the process plant and supply the equipment and related bulk material for its cryogenic units. The two companies already are cooperating on other projects in Russia, including the Amur Gas Processing Plant (Amur GPP), located in the far eastern part of the country. 

Linde CEO Aldo Belloni said the competence and experience of the German group’s engineering division across the entire natural gas processing chain, from proprietary process technology to the manufacture of specialized, tailor-made cryogenic equipment, complements Peton’s experience in the design and construction of turnkey projects in Russia. He added that Linde’s LNG plant portfolio, bridges the gap between small- and world-scale LNG projects.

Belloni called the Portovaya LNG project developed jointly with Peton another milestone for the successful strategic cooperation between Gazprom and Linde in the area of cryogenic natural gas processing and liquefaction.