Russia appears to have recently added four LNG carriers to its growing dark fleet of tankers exporting cargoes from the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project, a Bloomberg analysis of shipping data showed on Monday.
Four LNG carriers, Kosmos, Merkuriy, Orion, and Luch have recently changed their ownership and management to little known companies. They were previously servicing Oman’s LNG exports and were managed or owned by Oman Ship Management Co, according to Bloomberg’s findings.
The Kosmos has recently docked at a floating storage unit that’s storing the gas from the Arctic LNG 2 project, which is sanctioned by the U.S., the EU, and the UK. The Kosmos carrier has also recently switched to Russian flag, Bloomberg’s analysis shows.
Russia relies on a growing number of shadow fleet tankers to ship its sanctioned LNG out of the Arctic area in north Russia, where exports are made possible thanks to ice-breaker class tankers.
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Early this year, Russia was keeping its sanctioned LNG trade with China alive during the winter thanks to an ice-class vessel capable of ploughing through the thick Arctic ice. The sanctioned Christophe De Margerie ice-class LNG tanker has exported several cargoes out of the Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia in recent months.
The Christophe De Margerie is the only ice-breaker tanker of the Russian shadow fleet that ship-tracking services have identified so far as operating on the route between Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project led by Novatek and the Chinese LNG import terminal of Beihai. The Chinese port has specialized in recent months in accepting all the sanctioned Russian LNG cargoes, both from the Arctic LNG 2 plant and from the Portovaya LNG small-scale export plant on the Baltic Sea, Gazprom’s only LNG export facility.
In total, all tankers servicing Russia’s LNG exports, most of which are sanctioned or soon to be phased out in Europe, number about 20 vessels currently, a Bloomberg analysis of tracking data showed.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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