Here comes Leonid Mikhelson's new 'shadow tanker' to the banned Saam FSU
The Aleksey Kosygin is Russia's first domestically-built gas carrier with ice classification Arc7. On February 2, it sailed into the Ura Bay, Kola Peninsula, for a transshipment operation at a 400-metre-long sanctioned terminal ship.
The Aleksey Kosygin is Novatek's new Arctic LNG carrier and a key component in the shady gas logistics scheme developed by the Russian company and its leader Leonid Mikhelson.
The extensive international sanctions notwithstanding, Novatek proceeds with the expansion of its Arctic LNG 2 project.
The 299-metre-long LNG carrier set out from the Zvezda Yard in Bolshoi Kamen, Russian Far East, in late December and subsequently sailed the Northern Sea Route to the Gydan Peninsula.
The far northern route is covered by thick sea ice at this time of year and the tanker, although designed for icebreaking in up to two-metre-thick ice, was escorted by a nuclear-powered icebreaker.
In Gydan, the Aleksey Kosygin loaded LNG at the Utrenny terminal and subsequently proceeded westwards through the Kara Sea and Barents Sea.
On February 2, the LNG carrier arrived in the Ura Bay on the Kola Peninsula, ship traffic tracking services show.
In the Ura Bay, the Aleksey Kosygin will reload liquified natural gas to the Saam FSU, whereupon another tanker will come and pick it up for export.
The export shipment is likely to be made by the Arctic Mulan, a carrier that is on the way towards the Kola Peninsula.
Almost all operations and activities linked with the Arctic LNG 2 project are sanctioned by the US, UK and several other countries. That includes the Saam FSU and all ships transporting the LNG, among them the Aleksey Kosygin, the Arctic Mulan, the Christophe de Margerie and several more.
