A liquefied natural gas tanker has left Russia's Arctic LNG 2 after loading a cargo there, according to data compiled by LSEG and analytics firm Kpler, as the project continues output despite Western sanctions over Moscow's war in Ukraine.
The Christophe De Margerie tanker arrived at Arctic LNG 2 on October 17 and departed loaded on October 20, according to Kpler data. Shipping database Equasis lists the tanker's registered owner as Zelitiko Shipping, and its ship or commercial manager as Gas Carriers SCF Management, both with registered addresses in Dubai.
On the other hand, China has received a tenth cargo of LNG from the same project. The Arctic Mulan tanker, which is also under Western sanctions, berthed at the Beihai LNG Terminal in the southwestern region of Guangxi on October 17, Kpler data showed.
Its registered owner is Zinnia International and its commercial manager is Skyhart Management Services, both with registered addresses in India, according to shipping database Equasis.
It had picked up a cargo from the Koryak floating storage unit in Kamchatka, eastern Russia, on October 4, a facility only used for handling LNG from Arctic LNG 2, according to Kpler. It departed Beihai terminal on October 18.
PipeChina, operator of the Beihai LNG Terminal, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Arctic LNG 2 had been set to become one of Russia's largest LNG plants, with eventual output of 19.8 million tonnes a year, before it was placed under U.S. sanctions. It has delivered 10 cargoes to China's Beihai terminal in the southern region of Guangxi this year.
While Western countries have sought to cripple Moscow's oil and gas sector to punish it for its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, China has ramped up energy imports from Russia.
(Reporting by Emily Chow and Sam Li in Beijing; Editing by Joe Bavier, Mark Potter, Jason Neely and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
