Washington smokes out Moscow's "invisible" Arctic tankers

The LNG carriers Pioneer and Asya Energy this summer for several days drifted in the Barents Sea before they set course for the Gydan Peninsula and Novatek’s new  Urenny terminal.

The tankers are part of a “shadow fleet” used for transportation of LNG from Russia’s heavily sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.

A few weeks earlier, the North Sky most likely sailed the same route. The 293 meters long carrier had been rolled out from the Samsung Heavy Industries yard in South Korea in April 2024 and made its maiden voyage to the remote Arctic terminal.

The three tankers are all part of a secretive fleet of LNG carriers that recently has been established by Russia and its partners. Little is known about the ships and their operators, and they have repeatedly sailed in Arctic waters with their ship tracking systems turned off.

Although several of the ships this summer carried LNG from the Arctic LNG 2, none of them can be found on the Russian Northern Sea Route Administration’s list of vessels that this summer has sailed in the remote Arctic waters.

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According to energy analyst Mikhail Krutikhin, the ships turned off their electronic tracking systems and pretended they were “invisible” as they made their way towards the Gydan Peninsula. At Utrenny, the ships were loaded with LNG, but none of them delivered the gas to the market. Instead, the banned LNG was most likely reloaded to tankers that legitimately operate for Novatek’s nearby Yamal LNG.

Novatek’s scheme was a scam, Krutikhin argues. And the intricate plan did not work, he writes in a newspaper column.

According to Krutikhin, the ambitious Russian plans for the Arctic LNG 2 have collapsed and any new attempts by Novatek to bypass the sanctions will fail.

The latest round of U.S sanctions were announced as the Asya Energy again was on its way towards Gydan. On the 27th of August, the ship was located off the Kola Peninsula, ship tracking services showed.

The new U.S sanctions come also only few days after the second production platform for the Arctic LNG 2 arrived in the Gydan Peninsula. The 110 meter high object on the 17th of August arrived in the Utrenny port after a more than 2000 km long voyage from the LNG Construction Center in Belokamenka, Murmansk region.

The 640,000 ton heavy production platform now risks being left idle in the far northern bay. It could soon get rusty, like the rest of the industrial objects built for the Arctic LNG 2.