In Russia’s Arctic, off Kildin Island close to Murmansk, liquefied natural gas transshipments have started up again. Compared to other years, the restart occurs around one month earlier. In the eastern Barents Sea, off the Kola Peninsula’s coast, is the Kildin anchorage.
The energy behemoth Novatek maximizes the use of its fleet of ice-capable ships by transferring LNG from ship to ship. Two floating LNG storage tanks are among the components of Novatek’s logistical network that are no longer functional due to growing Western sanctions. The Chinese newbuild Wen Cheng and the Arc7 ice-class ship Nikolay Urvantsev are involved in the first STS of the 2024–2025 winter season. Typically, transfers take about 48 hours.
With the EU’s transshipment prohibition going into effect in March, open ocean LNG transfers will become more significant in 2025. At the moment, European terminals reexport about 20% of the Russian Arctic LNG produced by the Yamal plant.
The Kildin anchorage may see an additional 55 reloadings over the course of the upcoming year if Russia intends to transfer a comparable volume through STS operations. About 20 transfers occur at the site annually, mostly in the winter when traditional LNG ships are unable to reach Yamal LNG. In the past, Novatek depended on a transshipment location in protected Norwegian seas close to the Nordkapp, further west. Between 2018 and 2020, it moved a few hundred shipments close to Honningsvåg. In August of that year, it moved its activities to Russian Seas off Kildin Island.
According to Novatek at the time, the corporation stopped transshipments in Norway due to intense “Western pressure.” The United States had also heavily criticized Norway for hosting the Russian natural gas transit, which was “undermining Europe’s energy diversification efforts.”
Novatek’s first proposal to start using the Saam FSU, the largest floating LNG barge in the world, to transport goods on its way to Europe was thwarted by US sanctions. With the exception of a few test unloadings with authorized cargoes from Arctic LNG 2 earlier this summer, it is primarily underused and restricted to Yamal LNG goods.
