The third gas carrier is being sent to Arctic LNG—2, which is under direct US sanctions. The vessel does not indicate the destination, but belongs to the same Indian company that operates tankers that have already taken liquefied gas on the project.
The Everest Energy tanker passes by the coast of Norway in the Barents Sea. This is indicated by AIS data. The gas carrier is heading to the Russian Arctic, where the Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG-2 plants are located.
Obviously, Everest Energy is on its way to the latest project, which is under blocking US sanctions. They were introduced in November 2023.
Arctic LNG —2 will be the second Russian Arctic LNG project — the most powerful, 19.8 million tons per year. In the US, they promised to kill the project.
The route of the vessel can be assumed by its operator — Indian Ocean Speedstar Solutions, registered in Mumbai. According to Equasis, Pioneer and Asya Energy tankers also transferred to this company in June, which already took the first cargoes to Arctic LNG —2 in August.
In the West, these tankers are called the shadow fleet, since the owners of the vessels are unknown and the vessels carry LNG bypassing sanctions.
Transportation of sanctioned Russian LNG went the way of transporting Russian oil when restrictions were imposed against it. In 2022, the unknown Indian Gatik Ship Management, also registered in Mumbai, made a splash in the tanker market. In less than a year, the company became the owner of fifty vessels worth $ 1.4 billion and transported mainly Russian oil to India.
The Financial Times reported, citing consulting company Windward, that since the second quarter of 2023, more than 50 LNG vessels have changed owners to companies located in the UAE, and tankers can be involved in the transportation of Russian gas. However, so far the databases speak only about nine tankers.
Arctic LNG—2 itself was supposed to teach ice-class gas carriers to launch the first stage in December last year. However, the South Korean shipyard and the Japanese operator cannot transfer ready-made vessels due to sanctions, and the Russian Zvezda shipyard cannot complete gas carriers due to restrictions.
It became possible to take LNG from the sanctions project when navigation began on the Northern Sea Route and traditional gas carriers were able to approach the project.
"At the current production level (at Arctic LNG — 2), we can expect tankers to be loaded every 8 days or so," Mehdi Tuil, a leading LNG specialist at Calypso Commodities, told gCaptain.