In just nine months, Russia has doubled the number of opaque-owned vessels that it uses to ship liquefied natural gas from its sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 export project, a Bloomberg analysis of vessel-tracking data showed on Tuesday.
As of December 2025, Russia was estimated to have 11 LNG carriers in its dark fleet. Now the number has jumped to at least 20, including the second ice-class vessel that is capable of moving through Arctic waters throughout the whole year, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.
Since Arctic LNG 2 was sanctioned by the United States, the EU, and the UK in 2024, and since the EU is phasing out Russian LNG imports by the end of this year, Moscow has been quietly amassing a dark fleet of LNG carries to ship its gas, soon-to-be-sanctioned in Europe, east to Asia.
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Russia kept its sanctioned LNG trade with China alive during the past 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 been exporting cargoes to China.
Now another ice-class vessel, a Russia-built ship, is being added to the dark fleet, as are several others, as Moscow wants to continue selling its gas, this time in Asia as the EU has slammed the door to Russian LNG.
The caveat is that only China is willing to buy Arctic LNG 2 cargoes, limiting the potential pool of new Russian LNG customers and potentially giving China a leverage on pricing.
For months, Russia has been buying elderly LNG carriers for its dark fleet ahead of the EU sanctions on the LNG sector that take effect on January 1, 2027, maritime intelligence firm Windward said in a report in June.
As the sanctions will restrict which vessels are able to call at LNG terminals in EU jurisdictions, this “means Russia needs an alternative carrier base to maintain LNG export capacity outside Western frameworks,” Windward said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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