Ice-breaking tankers are essential, especially for the Arctic LNG 2 project, which will send LNG to Asian countries. With the US sanctions, Novatek is finding it very difficult to recover the tankers built by the Koreans. So, Russia is in a bind. Herve Baudu, French Maritime Acadamy.
Too bad, so sad. One of Putin's prize projects is taking advantage of the Arctic death spiral by building on the thawing permafrost and melting sea ice for shipping to world markets by expanding methane liquified natural gas facilities LNG). The LNG or train, known in the liquefaction process, is where the gas is turned into liquid. There are four processes required: "Pretreatment Remove dust and slug (water and condensate) along with hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and mercury (Hg). These pollutants can cause corrosion and freezing problems, especially in aluminum heat exchangers.".
As some of you who follow greenhouse gas emissions know, removing sulfur from shipping fuels has led to rapid rises in the oceans' temperatures by removing aerosols that were masking the effects of the intensification of greenhouse gases. We are now in a dangerous situation that could quickly trigger tipping points we never want to face. But I digress; that nugget is for another diary.
The first LNG trains for the Arctic LNG 2 Project were successfully delivered to Murmansk in 2021 for assembly and then towed to the western shore of the Gydan Peninsula. Gydan is located on the Siberian coast in the Kara Sea, where methane has bubbled to the ocean surface. Glaciologist Jason Box said of the phenomenon, If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, 'We're Fucked.
The ice-breaking vessels necessary to move the gas from the Arctic are only made in two countries, South Korea and China. China took care of Russia with the technology that has made the Arctic LNG 2 operational. In November, the LNG was sanctioned by the United States for the invasion of Ukraine. It followed an earlier EU Ban on LNG technology in 2022.
Russia foils western sanctions on natural gas project as shipments near
In mid-August 2023, the company towed a 640,000 ton heavy production unit more than 2,000 km from Murmansk to the Utrenneye port in the Gydan peninsula. In mid-February this year, a tanker made port call in Utrenneye, which indicates that production has been started and that the first shipment will soon set out from the Gulf of Ob.The super-chilled fuel has grown in importance for the Kremlin because of the loss of pipeline exports to Europe.When Arctic LNG’s three production lines or “trains”, which convert natural gas to LNG, are complete, the project will have an annual production capacity of 19.8mn tonnes and contribute significantly to Moscow’s prewar output target of 80-140mn tonnes by 2035.
Production from the first Arctic LNG 2 train started in December, and industry sources and traders have suggested that the project could ship its first cargo in the next few weeks. Novatek had previously signed supply contracts with Zhejiang Energy Gas Group and Shenergy Group of China.
Not so fast. It is not as good news for Putin and China as Fortune implied. As the platform has arrived (The nodules came from the Zhoushan port in China) and is now interlinked in Gydan’s Utrenneye Port, the LNG Process may be ready for docking. Still, the ice-breaking tankers Pyotr Kapitsa, Leve Landau, and Zhores Alferov sit in South Korean shipyards. They are not going anywhere.
Ever-tighter sanctions against Moscow have left a South Korean shipbuilder struggling to find buyers for specialized vessels intended to serve Russia’s newest liquefied natural gas facility, threatening to delay exports from the Arctic project.
Russia’s Sovcomflot PJSC had ordered the vessels, specifically tailored for use at Novatek PJSC-led Arctic LNG 2 export plant above the Arctic circle, in 2020, but the contract was terminated after the invasion of Ukraine, and ownership reverted to the shipbuilder.
South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean Co. said this week by telephone that it was still seeking an alternative shipping company eager to take the icebreaker-class gas carriers. The process was taking longer than usual due to the specialized nature of the ships, it said.
Hanwha said Western restrictions were not specifically to blame for the time lag. Any buyer, however, would have to agree to work with Russia — effectively the only market where icebreaker LNG vessels are required to navigate frigid northern waters — and most likely on a project sanctioned by Washington last year.
The US imposed specifically targeted restrictions on the operator of the Arctic LNG 2 export plant in November, all but forcing out investors including France’s TotalEnergies SE and Japan’s Mitsui & Co., which have both declared force majeure.
There was one ice-breaker that did make it to the Gyden peninsula. But, Six months after arrival to Ura Guba, Novatek's brand new 400-meter-long storage tanker is left in the cold
The 400 meter long and 60 meter wide vessel arrived in Ura Guba on the Barents Sea coast in late June 2023, and appears not to have handled a single shipment of liquified natural gas.
Judging from available shipping data, the Saam FSU has been lying idle in the remote bay ever since arrival.
The Panama-registered unit was to serve as transshipment base for Novatek’s liquified natural gas from the Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2 projects. The latter has been significantly delayed and Novatek is unlikely to get its three project trains in operation as planned.
But it is international sanctions that is the main problem for Novatek, energy expert Mikhail Krutikhin says in a comment to the Barents Observer.
“The problem is with the recent US sanctions against the operator of the transshipment hub,” he explains.
Novatec has other icebreakers. According to Bloomberg reporting, they were all leased out and are now unavailable.
Novatek does have an existing fleet of icebreaker vessels, but those are already chartered to customers and being used to ferry LNG from the unsanctioned Yamal export plant, said the French Maritime Academy’s Baudu.The sordid story is that Russia will not be able to profit from the Arctic LNG and finance the Ukraine War for now. The climate will get a brief respite from methane gas out of the Arctic, and wildlife and ecosystems may survive for another day without the additional threats from shipping,