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Advancing ice has prevented an LNG carrier from loading a cargo at Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 plant, Bloomberg reported today, citing ship-tracking data.
The Buran, an Arc4 ice-class vessel that can move through icy waters, but up to a point, set off for the Arctic LNG 2 project on the Gydan Peninsula in Western Siberia last month. It reached the Gulf of Bo, where it circled for a while before apparently giving up and set off back to Murmansk. The Buran is under U.S. sanctions.
Earlier reports said loading cargoes from Novatek’s Siberian LNG facilities had already become challenging as early as October. At the time, it was reported that the same vessel, Buran, had offloaded a cargo at a Kamchatka floating storage unit on October 26, reached the Northern Sea Route north of the Bering Strait on October 29, and had then started trying to make its way along the North Sea Route amid early winter ice.
After more than a year of attempts to sell cargoes amid Western sanctions, Arctic LNG found the usual customer, one LNG import terminal in China, which has been receiving the sanctioned cargoes on blacklisted vessels since August. China’s Beihai has received at least 11 shipments of Arctic LNG in just two months.
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.
Since June, Novatek has sold more than 1 million tons of liquefied gas from Arctic LNG 2, despite sanctions. Cargo-loading accelerated markedly since August, with Vortexa reporting in September that there were six loaded LNG carriers in transit, carrying gas from the Gydan Peninsula.
