On the one that came up to Portugal's LNG tanker has become sanctioned: will the Europeans accept it?

The tanker of the Greek company delivered Russian LNG to The Iberian Peninsula. However, since last Friday, it has become sanctioned when the United States added the Baltic Portovaya and Cryogaz Vysotsk complexes to the SDN List. The vessel continues to maneuver off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. Meanwhile, the tanker of the European shipowner continues to go to Cryogaz Vysotsk, and the Veliky Novgorod gas carrier is in Portovaya.

The Cool Rover tanker of the Greek Thenamaris delivered LNG from the Portovaya complex, which left on December 30, to the Iberian Peninsula. However, it has not unloaded and has been maneuvering off the coasts of Portugal and Spain for more than three days.

The reason for the delay is unknown. It is known that the gas carrier constantly delivers Russian LNG to Spain and Portugal and arrived to the Iberian Peninsula even before the US Treasury announced last Friday sanctions against the Portovaya and Cryogaz Vysotsk complexes.

These medium-tonnage complexes with a total capacity of 2.2 million tons of LNG (3 billion cubic meters of gas) — projects of Gazprom and Novatek, Gazprombank. Initially, they worked only for Europe. However, recently, some of the cargo has also gone to Asia.

Experts do not undertake to predict whether the tanker will unload the Greek shipowner in Spain and Portugal and whether the Europeans will decide to circumvent US sanctions. At the same time, the Veliky Novgorod tanker, which itself was sanctioned on Friday, has also been on the Portovaya for three days.

But the Coral Fungia tanker is going to Cryogaz Vysotsk, which headed for the Baltic plant even before the restrictions were imposed. This vessel of the Dutch company Anthony Veder has been servicing the project for a long time and delivers LNG to the Belgian terminal in Zeebrugge, where it can be shipped to European buyers or reloaded for further delivery to Asia. Until March, Novatek can use European terminals for transshipment. This is followed by the EU ban, which does not apply to gas imports from Russia.

However, it is also unknown whether the US sanctions imposed on January 10 will stop the work. The share of plants in total LNG exports is small. The Arctic LNG—2 project, which has been under US sanctions since November 2023, has not shipped a single batch to consumers yet.

"They (sanctions) will cause us some damage, harm, but of course, we will get out of other situations with energy supplies. Moreover, energy needs from the point of view of the development of the world economy are still growing and will continue to grow. This is not our data — this is the data of world economic institutions. It's just that this product will be in demand on world markets. We will continue to do this and will increase our share in the global LNG markets," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in December.