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EU shipyards are repairing Russian ice-class tankers and offering them dry-docking facilities, allowing Moscow to continue transporting gas through the Arctic despite Western sanctions on its energy sector.
Without maintenance work – provided by the Damen shipyard in Brest, France, and Fayard A/S in Denmark – Russia’s Yamal LNG plant would struggle to access key markets during the winter when gas prices in the Northern Hemisphere are at their highest.
The two yards served 14 of the 15 fleets of specialized Arc7 tankers that deliver Yamal LNG on Russia’s far northern coast, according to satellite imagery and port call monitoring data from Kplera, a data and analytics firm. Some ships called more than once.
“If those two shipyards were banned, it would put the entire logistics operation in question,” said Malte Humpert, an Arctic shipping expert at High North News who has been tracking ship movements. “They could get service elsewhere, but that would mean deviating from their route.”
Eight tankers have entered Damen, while Fayard has served nine since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Most of the ships are owned by energy and shipping companies, including Greece’s Dynagas.
Damen confirmed that it had repaired “several ships involved in the transport of Russian LNG”, but added that this was “strictly in accordance with European sanctions laws” and that it was “not involved in the cargo choices made by the shipping companies that operate it ships”.
“Further repairs of these LNG ships are not planned in the coming period,” it was said.
Fayard did not respond to a request for comment.
The gradual abolition of Russian gas is the central political goal of the European Commission. However, his goal of reducing the EU’s use of Russian fossil fuels to zero by 2027 has been derailed by increased imports of Russian LNG, mostly from Yamal.
The activities of ships and shipyards are not sanctioned due to the separation for energy transport and because they are not under the Russian flag, and specialized tankers would not be able to distribute their cargo without technical expertise and maintenance from European shipyards.
The only one from the fleet that did not stop at either of the two shipyards is Christophe de Margerie, which is owned by the sanctioned Russian shipping company Sovcomflot.
On December 16, the EU agreed to sanction the ship itself — the bloc’s first move to impose sanctions on Yamal’s operations. The US has already hit the Yamal project with waves of sanctions.
Christophe de Margerie’s inability to access repair facilities in Europe put the ship out of service for six months, demonstrating Arc7’s reliance on European know-how and parts, Humpert said.
From Yamal, ships can either sail to Europe or take the much longer and more dangerous North Sea route to China. The eastern route is navigable only during the warmer months, despite Novatek — the owner of Yamal LNG — experimenting with longer shipping times.
The Arc7 LNG carriers were built in South Korea at a cost of about $333 million per ship, according to research by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
They are 200 meters long and can carry around 170,000 cubic meters of natural gas with a specially designed ‘Azipod’ propulsion system for sailing through thick ice.
One European shipbroker said French and Danish shipyards, which have dry docks large enough for large tankers, “are the only ones capable of handling the Arc7 while also being in the right location”.
While Russian crude oil and coal are sanctioned, gas has remained outside the bloc’s sanctions regime due to concerns over security of supply.
As a first step towards the gradual abolition of imported gas, the EU countries agreed in June to ban the transshipment of Russian LNG from March. This will stop the use of EU ports to transfer gas from ice-class tankers to cheaper ordinary vessels for shipment to other countries.
Yamal LNG exported 20.9 billion cubic meters to Europe in 2023, according to OIES, about a quarter of which was sent to destinations outside the bloc. Yamal supplies accounted for around 85 to 90 percent of Russian LNG imports to the EU, according to think-tank Bond Beter Leefmilieu.
Additional reporting Shotaro Tani in London
This article has been amended to clarify who currently owns the tankers.