Russian integrated oil and gas company PJSC Gazprom said Oct. 4 that it signed a framework agreement with oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC for the joint design concept of its Baltic LNG project.

The agreement outlined the next phase of the project leading up to the front-end engineering and design stage. In addition, the two companies noted that the joint feasibility study for the project, which was signed in June 2017, was completed.

Baltic LNG is a natural gas liquefaction plant to be built near the seaport of Ust-Luga located in Russia's Leningrad region and will have an annual capacity of 10 million tons.