A US sanctioned gas tanker that picked up a cargo from Russia’s new Arctic LNG 2 plant this month has been spotted carrying out a ship-to-ship transfer, suggesting Moscow is managing to continue some exports from the project.
Monitoring service TankerTrackers.com said in an X post on Monday that the Pioneer had conducted a transfer to the Palau-flagged, UAE-owned and Indian-managed New Energy tanker north of the Suez Canal.
The Arctic 2 LNG plant, which was planned to be Russia’s largest, started producing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in December, but its exports have been hindered by Western sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Ship-to-ship transfers usually unload LNG from costly ice-class tankers onto cheaper conventional gas carriers, but can also be used to complicate cargo tracking. While some countries, including India, continue to buy Russian energy despite Western sanctions, they are sometimes wary of advertising the fact to try to avoid diplomatic tensions.
The United States said on Friday it had sanctioned more Russian entities and individuals over the war in Ukraine.
It also said that Pioneer and another tanker, Asya Energy, entered Russian waters in late July and engaged in a number of “deceptive shipping practices”, such as shutting off the vessels’ automatic identification system (AIS).
It said that Pioneer loaded LNG from the Arctic LNG 2 plant from Aug. 1-3.
