Arctic LNG comes in from the cold

Beijing now appears prepared to accept discounted Russian LNG, even at the cost of heightened sanctions risk

Russia’s long-delayed and heavily sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project has begun regular LNG shipments to a single port in China, with Washington so far refraining from imposing secondary sanctions on the recipient—possibly holding fire until there is movement in the Ukraine peace process. Even so, the current flow is unlikely to bring output anywhere near the full capacity of the project’s first 6.6mt/yr train, particularly as the winter navigation season looms, when Russia will lack sufficient ice-class vessels to traverse the frozen Northern Sea Route (NSR). The US, under the Biden administration, imposed sanctions on Arctic LNG 2 in November 2023, prompting TotalEnergies and other Western off