The U.S Treasury is putting a stop to Novatek's grand
plans for LNG production in the Arctic. Photo: Atle Staalesen
Washington smokes out Moscow's "invisible"
Arctic tankers
The shady fleet of carriers that this
summer picked up natural gas from Russia's new terminal in the Gulf of Ob has
been placed on the latest U.S. sanctions list.
By
Atle
Staalesen
August 27, 2024
The LNG carriers Pioneer and Asya Energy this summer for
several days drifted in the Barents Sea before they set course for the Gydan
Peninsula and Novatek’s new Urenny terminal.
The tankers are part of a
“shadow fleet” used for transportation of LNG from Russia’s heavily sanctioned
Arctic LNG 2 project.
A few weeks earlier, the North Sky most likely sailed
the same route. The 293 meters long carrier had been rolled out from
the Samsung Heavy Industries yard in South Korea in April 2024 and made its
maiden voyage to the remote Arctic terminal.
The three tankers are all part
of a secretive fleet of LNG carriers that recently has been established by
Russia and its partners. Little is known about the ships and their operators,
and they have repeatedly sailed in Arctic waters with their ship tracking
systems turned off.
Although several of the ships
this summer carried LNG from the Arctic LNG 2, none of them can be found on the
Russian Northern Sea Route Administration’s list of vessels that this summer has sailed in the remote Arctic
waters.
According to energy analyst
Mikhail Krutikhin, the ships turned off their electronic tracking systems and
pretended they were “invisible” as they made their way towards the Gydan
Peninsula. At Utrenny, the ships were loaded with LNG, but none of them
delivered the gas to the market. Instead, the banned LNG was most likely
reloaded to tankers that legitimately operate for Novatek’s nearby Yamal LNG.
Novatek’s scheme was a scam,
Krutikhin argues. And the intricate plan did not work, he writes in a newspaper column.
According to Krutikhin, the
ambitious Russian plans for the Arctic LNG 2 have collapsed and any new
attempts by Novatek to bypass the sanctions will fail.
The latest
round of U.S sanctions were announced as the Asya
Energy again was on its way towards Gydan. On the 27th of
August, the ship was located off the Kola Peninsula, ship tracking services
showed.
The new U.S sanctions come
also only few days after the
second production platform for the Arctic LNG 2 arrived in the Gydan Peninsula. The 110 meter high object on
the 17th of August arrived in the Utrenny port after a more than 2000 km long
voyage from the LNG Construction Center in Belokamenka, Murmansk region.
The 640,000 ton heavy
production platform now risks being left idle in the far northern bay. It could
soon get rusty, like the rest of the industrial objects built for the Arctic
LNG 2.
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