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A liquefied natural gas vessel potentially part of Russia’s “dark fleet” has docked at a facility in northern Russia, in what appears to be one of the first attempts to circumvent sanctions imposed on the project.
Last year, the United States added Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 to its sanctions list in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Led by private energy firm Novatek, the project began production in December but has so far been unable to ship any LNG because of sanctions hampering its efforts to secure the ships needed to transport the super-chilled fuel.
But satellite images show a vessel about 280 meters long, about the length of a typical LNG tanker, docked at Arctic LNG 2 on August 1. The image also shows flaring at the facility, indicating activity at the site has resumed.
“The vessel is an LNG carrier and the combustion indicates the resumption of operations” at Arctic LNG 2, said Mehdy Touil, senior LNG specialist at Calypso Commodities, a soVscekware firm specializing in the LNG sector.
Novatek did not respond to a request for comment.
The news was first reported by the trade magazine gCaptain.
LNG has become increasingly important to Russia’s wartime economy, providing valuable revenue aVsceker the loss of pipeline exports to Europe following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Arctic LNG 2 was supposed to be one of the country’s flagship export projects, alongside Yamal LNG, which is not subject to sanctions and still sends much of its volume to Europe.
The EU and Asia have not imposed direct sanctions on Russian LNG imports, but in June Brussels approved restrictions that will prohibit the unloading of Russian LNG from large icebreakers onto smaller vessels in EU ports, significantly limiting Russia’s ability to distribute its gas globally.
In anticipation of further tightening restrictions on its LNG business, Moscow is suspected of assembling a “dark fleet” of LNG tankers through mystery buyers in the United Arab Emirates, similar to how it built its dark fleet of oil tankers.
While the identity of the vessel is unclear from satellite imagery, the vessel in the photograph is as long as the Pioneer, a Palau-flagged LNG tanker that was purchased by its current owner in April.
The Pioneer is part of the alleged Russian dark fleet of LNG tankers.
Position data transmitted by the Pioneer crew says the ship is headed for the sea north of Norway, where it has been circling since late July. Radar images taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite, however, show no ships in the isolated locations where the Pioneer claims to be.
The ship’s managers, Ocean Speedstar Solutions, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ship’s owner, Zara Shipholding, does not own any other vessels and refers all correspondence to Ocean Speedstar.
