The court will return to Rosneft’s suit about access to Sakhalin-2 gas pipeline

The Arbitration Court of the Sakhalin region postponed tor December 2nd the trial of Rosneft’s suit against the operator of Sakhalin-2 Sakhalin Energy (Gazprom holds 50% + one stock in the company) about granting of access to the gas pipeline the project owns. They do not report about the reasons for the decision of Arbitration Court.

The LNG plant of Sakhalin-2 is now the only Russian one. Gazprom is eager to enlarge that. However Rosneft has its own project of an LNG plant at Sakhalin, Sakhalin-1 jointly with ExxonMobil. The company needs the access to Sakhalin-2 for its lowering its cost. After Gazprom rejected the granting of access to the pipeline, Rosneft appealed to the court with a suit against the operator Sakhalin Energy with the demand to grant it access to the pipeline. Rosneft needs theannual transporting of up to 8 billion cubic m of gas via the pipeline.