Gazprom said on Sept. 22 that it discovered a new gas deposit during exploration at the Kirinskoye Field in the Sea of Okhotsk near Russia's Sakhalin island.

The field is crucial for Gazprom's plans to raise liquefied gas production at its Sakhalin-2 plant on the island. It has not disclosed the reserves of the newly discovered deposit.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A), which also has a stake in the LNG plant, may also get a share in the Kirinskoye Field as part of an asset swap deal with Gazprom, though the prospects for this are uncertain because of international sanctions for Russia's role in the Ukraine crisis. These bar Western companies from development of deepsea gas deposits in Russia and from some oil fields as well.

In 2015, the U.S. restricted exports, reexports and transfers of technology and equipment to the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye Field, which is part of the wider Kirinskoye deposit.

Gazprom Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev told the Reuters Russia Investment Summit during the week of Sept. 12 that Gazprom had not yet chosen which assets it wanted to swap under its deal with Shell.

The Sakhalin-2 plant, which currently produces 10 million tonnes of LNG per year, is due to add another 5 million tonnes of LNG to allow Russia to come closer to its target of 5% of the global LNG market.

Offshore