Sanctioned Tanker to Arrive at Russia’s Arctic LNG Facility

A sanctioned LNG carrier is enroute to the Arctic LNG 2 facility to load what would be the fourth cargo of liquefied gas from the newest LNG facility in Russia.

Bloomberg cited ship-tracking data as showing Everest Energy moving to the facility on the Gydan Peninsula in Siberia. The vessel was placed under U.S. sanctions last year, as was the Arctic LNG 2 facility itself.

Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that Novatek was shipping LNG from its second Arctic facility to floating storage because of the sanctions. Bloomberg said in its report that Everest Energy had picked up an LNG cargo from Arctic LNG 2 last month and delivered it to a floating storage facility in Murmansk.

Arctic LNG 2 was considered key to Russia’s efforts to boost its global LNG market share from 8% to 20% by 2030-2035. Its planned annual capacity was 19.8 million tons of liquefied gas and 1.6 million tons of stable condensate.

But Novatek’s project has come under intensifying sanctions from the United States, which have put off any buyers that were previously considering buying cargoes from Arctic LNG 2.

The energy project has already seen months of delays after the initial U.S. sanctions in November 2023 upended the company’s plans for production start-up and export timelines. Last month, news emerged that the expansion has been delayed for 2028.

Russia, however, has started to amass a dark fleet of tankers to ship its LNG in vessel ownership transfers similar to the moves that Moscow began after the invasion of Ukraine to create a shadow fleet to export oil and products in the face of Western sanctions. Everest Energy and the other vessels that have picked up cargo from Arctic LNG 2 are also hiding their destinations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week the country will continue to work to expand its global LNG presence. “We will do this despite any difficulties that they are trying to create for us,” Putin said at the Eastern Economic Forum.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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