A gas carrier stuck on the Northern Sea Route has almost reached China

An LNG tanker carrying a shipment from Arctic LNG—2 is approaching China. The vessel will become the sixth tanker in a row to bring the sanctioned cargo to China. Prior to that, a non-ice-class vessel was stuck on the Northern Sea Route, where it had to stay for at least a week.

The tanker Artcic Metagaz has left the Northern Sea Route and is already completing a bypass of Japan from the south, heading to China. This is evidenced by the AIS data of the courts.

Before that in The PRC has already unloaded five gas carriers with batches from the sanctioned Arctic LNG — 2, and most of them did it in the southern port of Beihai. At the current speed of 10 knots, Artcic Metagaz will reach it in 8 days. The ship itself indicates arrival at an unknown point on September 27.

The gas carrier left Murmansk on August 19 and went along the Northern Sea Route. On August 29, however, the tanker stopped in the East Siberian Sea - at the edge of the ice field. And I've been maneuvering with him for at least a week. Obviously, the gas carrier went further along the coast accompanied by an icebreaker. This is the standard route of this navigation season due to the ice situation in the region.

Traditionally, in August, the entire Northern Sea Route turns into open water, but the changes have shown the complexity of the passage of the Northern Sea Route by non-ice-class vessels, which are also under sanctions and are trying to save on ice wiring, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Initially, Arctic LNG—2 was to be serviced by ice-class icebreakers. However, due to sanctions, the project was unable to receive LNG tankers from South Korea. At the Russian shipyard Zvezda, the delivery of ships is also delayed.

"An important step will be the transition to year-round navigation in the eastern sector of the NSR. This approach was incorporated into the transport strategy of the Arctic LNG 2 project. Unfortunately, the sanctions restrictions on this project did not allow us to receive ice—class vessels built at the Korean shipyard," Yevgeny Ambrosov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Novatek, said at the Eastern Economic Forum.

In total, up to 10 cargoes — up to 900 million cubic meters of gas in the form of LNG — can be delivered from Arctic LNG-2 and from a floating storage facility in Kamchatka by the end of navigation along the Northern Sea Route. These are not very large volumes for a project that can already operate at a capacity of more than 17 billion cubic meters per year, but symbolic.

The project began to be launched back in December 2023, but direct US sanctions led to the fact that end consumers were afraid of secondary sanctions and delivery to China began only from the end of August 2025.

As EADaily reported with reference to Bloomberg, China, apparently, is creating a system for regular purchases of LNG from the sanctions project. Sources told the agency that the Chinese authorities have identified a terminal in Beihai to receive sanctioned cargo.

"By choosing a single port with a limited international presence, Beijing will be able to protect its gas sector from retaliatory measures," Bloomberg wrote.

Experts noted that the supplies may now be symbolic, as China is demonstrating its determination to protect its own interests in the midst of trade negotiations with the United States.