The largest energy generation company in Japan, Jera, signed an agreement with the new operator of the Russian field Sakhalin-2, to continue buying liquefied gas, after its nationalization, the local press announced on Friday, quoted by the EFE agency.

Jera, a joint venture between electricity firms Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power, signed the agreement on Thursday, which maintains the same contractual terms as before the project was awarded to a subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom, according to Japan’s Kyodo news agency.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, signed the decree on June 30 for the transfer of the assets of Sakhalin Energy, which operated Sakhalin-2, to the Gazprom subsidiary, which practically puts the project under the control of the Russian Government, writes EFE, according to Agerpres.

Sakhalin Energy’s shares were owned by Gazprom (50%), the British company Shell (27.5%) and the Japanese Mitsui (12.5%) and Mitsubishi (10%).

The restructuring provides that the foreign investors will receive their shares, if they notify the Russian Executive, this month, that they want to remain in the project.

While Shell had already announced, before the nationalization, its intention to exit the project, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which led many European and American companies to withdraw from energy projects with Russia, the Japanese companies Mitsui and Mitsubishi decided to remain in Sakhalin-2.

The Japanese government asked the companies to stay in the project to guarantee a stable supply of gas in the country, which is highly dependent on imports of natural resources.

Sakhalin-2 produced and exported 11.6 million tons of liquefied natural gas in 2021, of which more than half (about 6 million tons) went to Japan.

The Asian country depends on imports for almost 98% of the gas it consumes and Russia is its fifth largest source of the fuel. Sakhalin-2 provides about 10% of the liquefied gases that Japan imports.