SALEKHARD, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia could increase its share on the world liquefied natural gas market to 25%, the CEO of Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Thursday.

"Russia could take a leading position on the world LNG market and get 25% of the global market," Alexei Miller said at a meeting on the development of gas deposits.

The global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) will double by 2020, Miller said.

"The [LNG] market has grown 70% since 2000, and according to our forecasts it will double by 2020," Miller said.

The Gazprom CEO said that the project for the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant on Yamal Peninsula in West Siberia would be ready by 2015-2017.

"Currently we are at the pre-project stage; I don't believe this will happen earlier than 2015-2017," Miller said in response to the question about when the project would be ready and Gazprom would start selecting foreign partners for its implementation.

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said earlier in the day that the potential of natural gas production at explored fields alone on Yamal Peninsula was estimated at 360 billion cubic meters a year for many years to come, with the peninsula's reserves estimated at over 50 trillion cubic meters.