Nuclear-Free Japan Ponders Gas Pipeline From Russia
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Japan’s government has discussed the possibility of building an underwater gas pipeline from Russia, said former Japanese foreign minister Seiji Maehara, with the country preparing for a nuclear-free future following the shutdown of its last working nuclear power plant late Saturday.
Japan’s government has discussed the possibility of building an underwater gas pipeline from Russia, said former Japanese foreign minister Seiji Maehara, with the country preparing for a nuclear-free future following the shutdown of its last working nuclear power plant late Saturday.
Maehara, who is now the Chairman of the Council for political studies of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, told a news conference in Moscow that his country was likely to rely more on gas to generate electricity in the future, and had already undergone talks with Russia’s leading gas producer Gazprom over the feasibility of building a seabed pipeline in the Sea of Japan.
According to RT News, the prospective pipeline is likely to extend from the Russian city of Vladivostok, where Japan Far East Gas Co have been developing a $7 billion project with Gazprom over the construction of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant and gas chemical complex by 2016.
Though the cost and timeline of the pipeline is still not clear, RT News understands that the project would significantly boost Gazprom exports to the Japanese energy market, which presently accounts for less than 10 percent of the country’s consumption.
Japan is the world’s fourth largest energy consumer and the largest importer of LNG. Every year, the country is said to import nearly 95-100 billion cubic meters of LNG from Russia, Indonesia, Qatar, Australia, Brunei and Malaysia.
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But this figure is expected to rise significantly, after Japan shut down its last nuclear power plant, Hokkaido Electric Power, last Saturday – marking the first time since 1970 that Japan has been without nuclear power.
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power accounted for close to 30 percent of Japan’s energy needs. The Japanese government has already warned its citizens to prepare for power outages over the summer and is said to be deliberating compulsory curbs on the use of power by mid-May in order to meet with the expected shortages.
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Maehara said that the government was considering the pipeline proposal very seriously and a preliminary study is expected to be commissioned soon.
“From a purely economic point of view, that is quite reasonable, taking into consideration that Japan is ditching nuclear energy. The country will be having a shortfall in energy resources, which will lead to a greater demand for oil and gas”, said Dmitry Lyutyagin, an independent energy analyst to The Voice of Russia.
“The crucial issue for a possible joint action between Russia and Japan on the gas issue is an achievement of a common political consensus, an agreement which is presently being hindered by the Kuril Islands. If that obstacle is removed, more dynamic cooperation between the two nations will be possible,” added Denis Borisov, an oil and gas analyst.
[quote]“Japan is quite close to Sakhalin, which is rich in crude oil and gas, and which will be cheaper to pump to Japan by pipe than the supply of liquefied gas”, he said.[/quote]
