Russia’s Gazprom Sends Baltic LNG Through Arctic Avoiding Africa Detour

By Malte Humpert (gCaptain) –

Arctic shipping lanes continue to heat up as an alternative to established trade routes. Russian gas major Gazprom is the latest company this summer to skip the Suez Canal or Africa detour and instead dispatch a vessel using the Northern Sea Route as a shortcut to Asia. 

LNG carrier Pskov departed Gazprom’s Portovaya liquefaction plant near Saint Petersburg in the Baltic Sea on September 3 and entered the waters of the Northern Sea Route to the north of Novaya Zemlya on September 10. The small-scale Portovaya LNG plant with a capacity of 1.5 million metric tons per year opened in September 2022. 

Pskov has previously visited Arctic waters carrying cargo from Novatek’s Yamal LNG plant in 2018 and 2019 and completed ship-to-ship transfers of Russian LNG in Norwegian waters. The 300 meter-long vessel can carry 170,471 m³ of liquefied natural gas.

With an Ice-2 ice class the vessel is permitted to pass through light sea ice conditions unassisted and medium first-year ice under icebreaker escort. Russia’s Northern Sea Route is currently largely ice-free except for drift ice in the far eastern sections, where nuclear icebreakers continue to provide assistance, including to Chinese container ships. 

More than 20 commercial vessels, including around a dozen LNG carriers, several Aframax and Suezmax oil tankers, and three container ships are active on the route at the moment. Peak summer navigation season will continue until the end of October when shorter days will signal the return of sea ice coverage. 

Pskov’s Arctic voyage, presumably to China, will take around four weeks totaling 8,500 nautical miles, up to 50 percent shorter than a traditional routing. A comparable journey from the Baltics to China via the Suez Canal or around Africa would register at 12,500 or 16,000 nautical miles, respectively. 

With continued turmoil in the Red Sea only a handful of carriers have passed through the Suez Canal this year, with almost the entire global fleet detouring via the southern tip of Africa. 

Super-chilled natural gas now flows across the Arctic from several sources, including exports from the Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2 projects as well as full transits from Europe to Asia as in the case of Pskov.

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