Yamal LNG starts up on time despite the headwinds

In a momentous day for NOVATEK, the project’s shareholders, and the Russian state, production at Yamal has begun. The project has started just four years after FID, almost a decade since the launch of the country's first and only LNG plant on Sakhalin island. With the first export, planned for the end of the week, NOVATEK will transition from a solely domestic gas supplier, to a global LNG player. The question now turns to how ramp-up. Can NOVATEK deliver? And what the wider implications for the LNG market?