The Northern Sea Route has come to life: China has changed its mind about reselling Russian LNG to Europe

Active navigation has begun on the Northern Sea Route. Four Yamal LNG gas carriers went to China at once. Obviously, the Chinese shareholders of the first Arctic project needed gas at home. Whereas in the first half of the year, almost all Yamal LNG was sold to Europe, including Chinese supplies.

An active navigation season has opened on the Northern Sea Route. According to the AIS of the vessels, four ice-class gas carriers with batches from Yamal LNG went on the shortest route to China. Together, they can carry about 400 million cubic meters of gas in the form of LNG.

So, the Eduard Toll gas carrier has already passed the Northern Sea Route and is moving along the coast of Japan. Following him, off the coast of Kamchatka, is the tanker Boris Vilkitsky. But "Georgy Ushakov" and "Fedor Litke" are still on the Northern Sea Route. The first one goes to The East Siberian Sea, while the second one went to the Laptev Sea.

The gas carrier "Christophe de" also made the second flight along the route. Margerie, which was transferred to Arctic LNG- 2 due to sanctions, and the vessel is filling a floating storage facility in Kamchatka this navigation season.

Since the beginning of this year, almost all Yamal LNG has been supplied to Europe. Obviously, Chinese shareholders resold to countries The EU and its share, as in the countries The EU has established a premium price. However, in June, the situation began to change. And because of the abnormal heat wave, the cost of gas in Asia has become higher than in Europe. Obviously, this is one of the reasons why the active export of Yamal LNG to Asia has resumed.

Summer is also a traditional time for the growth of supplies to Asia. However, it is not yet clear how much supplies to Europe will decrease. In addition to two traditional gas carriers that went to Asia via Europe, all the others continue to be delivered to EU countries — France, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium.

As EADaily reported, less and less LNG is coming to Europe, and stocks in the storage facilities of EU countries are recovering at an extremely slow pace. American gas is being taken away not only by Asian countries, but also Egypt, which needed large volumes to produce electricity. Now Russian LNG is also leaving.

According to GIE, if in March imports to countries The EU reached a record 431 million cubic meters per day, then in June it dropped to 333 million cubic meters, and in July — to 266 million cubic meters. Such a sharp decline has led to the fact that the injection into storage facilities does not add up and the gap between last year's reserves and the current ones exceeds 10 billion cubic meters — about 10% of the total capacity of the UGS of the EU countries.