MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia plans to rearrange ship-to-ship transfers of liquefied and gasoline condensate within the Barents and Bering Seas to unencumber extra ice-class tankers for its largest LNG producer, Novatek, a draft undertaking doc confirmed on Tuesday.
Novatek has been urgent forward with its new Arctic LNG 2 undertaking regardless of Western sanctions proscribing entry to the tankers it wants to hold LNG alongside the Northern Sea Path to Asian markets. Loadings of Russian LNG can be prohibited in EU ports from March 2025.
To handle its scarcity of vessels in a position to navigate Arctic waters, Russia plans to have these it does have unload their cargoes to common vessels at sea, releasing them up for brand new shipments, the draft seen by Reuters confirmed.
Novatek didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In line with the draft, the primary space for ship-to-ship transfers can be arrange close to the Chosha Bay within the Barents Sea for Obsky Ammiak, a subsidiary of Novatek.
Russia then plans to arrange a second facility with the samecapacity in Kresta Bay within the Bering Sea, the draft confirmed.
Transfers – which can solely occur when ship motion will not be hindered by ice – will enable for the loadings of 4.1 million cubic metres of LNG and 1.4 mcm of gasoline condensate a yr in every facility, the doc confirmed. Novatek already makes use of the identical scheme to carry out ship-to-ship LNG transfers off the coast of Russia’s Murmansk area.
