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The sanctioned Russian Arctic LNG export facility continues to ship cargoes to China as the U.S.-sanctioned project did not incur additional sanctions in Wednesday’s U.S. package imposed “as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine.”
While the U.S. slapped sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, and a number of their subsidiaries, it stopped short of imposing further sanctions on Arctic LNG, developed and operated by Russian energy firm Novatek.
The U.S., the EU, and the UK sanctioned Arctic LNG in 2024, forcing the project to scout for buyers with tankers full of LNG traveling across the seas for months.
After more than a year of attempts to sell cargoes, Arctic LNG found the usual customer—one LNG import terminal in China, which has been receiving the sanctioned cargoes on blacklisted vessels since August.
The Iris tanker arrived at China’s Beihai LNG import terminal on Thursday, marking the 11th such shipment of Arctic LNG in just two months, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
The U.S. sanctions from Wednesday did not target buyers or entities helping Russia evade the sanctions on its LNG project.
But last week, the UK sanctioned seven specialized LNG tankers and the Chinese Beihai LNG terminal.
The continued Russia-China trade from Arctic LNG 2 suggests that Moscow and Beijing appear unfazed by the UK sanctions on the project or the Chinese import terminal. They appear to have further breathing room with the lack of any LNG-targeted action in the latest U.S. sanctions.
The Arctic LNG 2 project roared back to life in August, in a sign that Russia could be testing the Trump Administration’s willingness to sanction Russia’s LNG customers in China. The start of the Russia-China trade from the U.S.-sanctioned project coincided with Vladimir Putin’s visit to China in late August-early September.
