Gazprom no longer hides where it sends the sanctioned LNG

A tanker with a batch of LNG from the Baltic Portovaya complex, which is under US sanctions, is being unloaded at the Chinese Beihai terminal. Earlier, cargo from another sanctioned project, Arctic LNG—2, went there.

The tanker Valera arrived in Asia and headed to the Beihai Terminal in The Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea. This is evidenced by the AIS data of the courts. Earlier, the tanker was loaded at the Portovaya Baltic complex, which belongs to Gazprom and is under US sanctions. The gas carrier can carry up to 100 million cubic meters of gas in the form of LNG at a time and for the first time does not hide the way to the end user.

This is the second visit of Baltic LNG tankers to Asia this year. The Perle gas carrier, as EADaily wrote, loaded LNG onto the CCH Gaz tanker off the coast of Malaysia and its whereabouts are unknown.

Now Valera has openly approached the Chinese terminal, which has begun to accept sanctioned liquefied gas from Russia since August. There are deliveries from Arctic LNG—2.

Obviously, Gazprom has established sales with Chinese companies. Since another tanker Perle returned to the Baltic Sea and was already loading a fresh batch today.

The Baltic medium-tonnage LNG complex "Portovaya" with a capacity of 1.5 million tons was launched in September 2022 and at the beginning the cargoes were delivered to Greece and Turkey. Last year, a significant part of the parties went to China and there was a direction to Spain. In January, when the United States announced sanctions, loading stopped and most of the fuel this year went to the Kaliningrad region.

It is quite possible that deliveries to the exclave will continue, since the journey to China for two tankers takes at least a month.

Bloomberg wrote that China, apparently, has created a system for regular purchases of LNG from sanctioned projects in Russia. Sources told the agency that the Chinese authorities have identified a terminal in Beihai to receive sanctioned cargo.

"By choosing a single port with a limited international presence, Beijing will be able to protect its gas sector from retaliatory measures," Bloomberg wrote.

Total of Russia could already deliver 1.7−1.9 billion cubic meters of gas to China in the form of sanctioned LNG.