The US fight against the export of liquefied gas from the Arctic LNG 2 project is forcing Novatek, the company implementing it, to take desperate measures. A 21-year-old tanker, whose registration was suspended after the introduction of sanctions, took on cargo at the end of last week and set off along the Northern Sea Route to Asia, Bloomberg and the specialized publication gCaptain report, citing data on the movement of ships. This is reported by
CASES AND FACTS

The Everest Energy tanker was built in 2003, Bloomberg notes. In late August of this year, it was sanctioned by the United States along with other vessels that were trying to start exports from Arctic LNG 2 (it was put on the American blacklist at the end of 2023). After that, the Republic of Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean under whose flag Everest Energy sailed, suspended the registration of it and two other tankers, Pioneer and Asya Energy, during an investigation on suspicion of deactivating or incorrectly transmitting transponders during voyages to Arctic LNG 2.

But the most important thing is that Everest Energy is a regular vessel, not an ice-class tanker, gCaptain points out; moreover, it does not have permission to sail in the Arctic Ocean from the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (Glavsevmorput). This is the first time this has happened, gCaptain points out, adding that with a revoked registration, the vessel would have problems passing through regulated international routes, such as the Suez Canal.

Novatek ordered ice-class tankers for Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2, but due to sanctions, it was left with only domestically produced vessels. In mid-September, the Arctic has the least amount of ice, gCaptain notes. An expert in Arctic shipping and professor of maritime education at the French Maritime Academy (ENSM) told the publication:

It is unclear whether Everest Energy will be accompanied [ледоколами] near Wrangel Island, since there is a lot of drifting ice there. We are seeing with our own eyes the risks of autonomous navigation of non-ice class vessels. This is completely at odds with everything that Glavsevmorput says about safe navigation.

Everest Energy does not specify its destination port. The tanker may try to deliver the cargo to an import terminal in Asia or to the Koryak UGS storage facility in Kamchatka, Bloomberg writes. It is designed for transshipment of LNG delivered along the Northern Sea Route by ice-class gas carriers from northern fields.

Everest Energy has already unloaded one batch from the sanctioned project into storage. Following Pioneer and Asya Energy, it became the third tanker to take cargo from Arctic LNG 2 and headed west, after which it found itself under sanctions, left the gas in the floating storage facility Saam UGSF in the Murmansk region, returned to Arctic LNG 2 and headed east along the Northern Sea Route.

So far, no vessel has delivered gas from Arctic LNG 2, which was scheduled to begin exports early this year, to end consumers. The US sanctions list already includes a total of nine LNG tankers that are in some way connected to the project.