Total acquires interest in Nigeria's Brass LNG project

Total has acquired Chevron's interest in the Brass LNG project in the Niger Delta, 90 km west of Bonny Island, Nigeria. Its current partners are NNPC, Eni and ConocoPhillips.

Project sanction for the first two trains of Brass LNG is expected by year-end, with production scheduled to start up in 2011. Initially, two trains will be built, with a capacity of 5 MMTPA each, with most of the LNG intended for export to Europe and the U.S. The feed gas will be supplied from the partners' productions, with Total accounting for a third, or 570 MMCFD, over a period of at least 20 years.

The interest is in addition to Total's 15% stake in NLNG, whose capacity was recently expanded to nearly 18 MMTPA with the commissioning of Trains 4 and 5 earlier this year. Train 6, with a capacity of 4 MMTPA, is under construction and scheduled to come on stream in 2007.

Gazprom establishes Houston subsidiary to supply LNG domestically

Russian gas monopoly OAO Gazprom has set up a U.S. subsidiary based in Houston to supply LNG to U.S. markets.

Gazprom Marketing & Trading USA will be headed by John Hattenberger, who has been LNG director for London-based Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd. since mid-2005.

LNG marketing "is not the kind of business where we could operate on our own. We are establishing partnerships with a number of major players in this field," Hattenberger told a Russian trade publication.

In August 2005, Gazprom inked a supply agreement with Shell Western BV and BG Group, a UK-based natural gas company, to supply LNG to the U.S. market. Gazprom's first LNG carrier arrived at a Cove Point, Md,. LNG terminal last September.