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Russia to utilize ship-to-ship LNG loadings to free up ice-class tankers

Russia plans to arrange shiptoship transfers of liquefied natural gas and gas condensate in the Barents and Bering Seas to free up more iceclass tankers for its biggest LNG producer, Novatek , a draft project document showed on Tuesday.

Novatek has actually been pressing ahead with its brand-new Arctic LNG 2 task in spite of Western sanctions limiting access to the tankers it requires to carry LNG along the Northern Sea Route to Asian markets. Loadings of Russian LNG will be restricted in EU ports from March 2025.

To resolve its scarcity of vessels able to browse Arctic waters, Russia plans to have those it does have dump their freights to routine vessels at sea, freeing them up for brand-new deliveries, the draft seen revealed.

Novatek did not immediately react to a request for remark.

According to the draft, the very first location for ship-to-ship transfers will be set up near the Chosha Bay in the Barents Sea for Obsky Ammiak, a subsidiary of Novatek.

Russia then prepares to establish a second facility with the exact same capacity in Kresta Bay in the Bering Sea, the draft revealed.

Transfers - which will only take place when ship movement is not impeded by ice - will permit the loadings of 4.1 million cubic metres of LNG and 1.4 mcm of gas condensate a year in each facility, the document revealed.

Novatek currently utilizes the same scheme to carry out ship-to-ship LNG transfers off the coast of Russia's Murmansk region.

(source: Reuters)