US cracks down on Russia’s LNG dark fleet

The US has imposed sanctions on seven LNG carriers linked to shipments of Russian super-chilled fuel. The move is part of the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC)  latest package targeting nearly 400 entities and individuals for aiding Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Talks of Russia potentially amassing a shadow fleet of LNG carriers started earlier this year when industry experts warned Moscow could implement a similar scenario it did with oil and product tankers to circumvent sanctions.

The vessels in the so-called dark or shadow fleet have opaque ownership, unknown insurers and deploy tactics such as hiding their location by switching off their AIS or giving it fake coordinates, otherwise known as spoofing.

LNG carriers added to the sanctions list include the Palau-flagged Asya Energy, Pioneer and Everest Energy; and the Panama-flagged North Air, North Mountain, North Sky and North Way.

In an attempt to circumvent sanctions on Russia’s revitalised Arctic LNG 2 project, “Russian companies have engaged in efforts to procure secondhand LNG tankers, predominantly through front companies in third country jurisdictions, to make up for a critical shortage of available tankers for the Arctic LNG 2 project,” the State Department said in a statement.

The Asya Energy and the Pioneer were registered by satellite images earlier this month loading the first two shipments from Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project previously sanctioned by the US. The two ships as well as the Everest Energy have been linked to India-based Ocean Speedstar Solutions, which has also been added to the sanctions list together with the UAE-based Nur Global Shipping‘s Zara Shipholding as the registered owner of the 2005-built Pioneer, ex-Pioneer Spirit (pictured).

The four other blocked Panama-flagged vessels have been associated with White Fox Ship Management, based in Dubai. The Treasury said the quarter had transshipped LNG from Russia’s Yamal LNG project, despite being originally intended for use with the Arctic LNG 2 project.

“The acquisition of these four vessels represents an expansion of Russia’s existing LNG fleet and export capacity, an expansion that we have committed to blocking,” the Treasury said, adding that such transshipment of LNG by vessels with obfuscated ownership could eventually help Russia circumvent EU restrictions prohibiting the transshipment of Russian-origin LNG through European ports.

The latest sanctions follow a package of more than 300 sanctions issued in June, designed to impede the development of Russia’s LNG and oil projects, including the Obsky LNG, Arctic LNG 1, Arctic LNG 2 and Arctic LNG 3, and a new project in development in the Murmansk region. Sanctions were also slapped on Novatek’s arm in China, set up to market gas to Asian buyers.