The first liquefied natural gas cargo from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 plant this year was discharged at China’s Beihai LNG terminal, LSEG data showed on Monday.
The Buran gas carrier was loaded with LNG on December 25 at a Saam floating storage unit near the Russian port of Murmansk that is used by the project, according to the data.
The vessel delivered the cargo to China’s southwestern Guangxi region via the Suez Canal, a route Arctic LNG 2 ships began using after winter restrictions limited access to the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast.
Arctic LNG 2, 60 per cent owned by Russia's Novatek, was set to become one of the country's largest LNG plants, with a target output of 19.8 million tonnes per year, but the sanctions from the US over Ukraine have clouded its prospects.
Novatek began production at Arctic LNG in December 2023, but only started deliveries of the cargoes to end-users, all of them in China, in August last year.
According to LSEG, Arctic LNG 2 delivered 23 cargoes, or 1.3 million tonnes of LNG, including from its storage facilities near Murmansk and the eastern Kamchatka Peninsula last year to the Beihai LNG, the sole importer of the cargoes from the project.
Separately, LSEG data showed on Monday that first Russia-made Arc 7 gas carrier, Alexey Kosygin, has arrived at Arctic LNG 2 for loadings.
Ice-class tankers usually have double hulls - strengthened structures to withstand the pressure of ice - and reinforced propellers.
(Reporting by Reuters, Editing by Louise Heavens)