Russia is creating a fleet to export gas to the Arctic LNG 2 project

To create a so-called “shadow fleet” that will export LNG, a company registered in Mumbai, India, was engaged.

Ocean Speedstar Solutions is legally registered at the address where photojournalist Nikhil Ganesh Ghorpade lives. Previously, he was not associated with the energy industry, writes  Bloomberg.

He is listed as the sole director of Ocean Speedstar in the official Indian register.

According to the photojournalist, a friend convinced him to register his name and home address on behalf of the company. By agreeing to the offer, he joined a scheme used to create a “shadow fleet” of gas carriers to export fuel from Russia’s $21 billion Arctic LNG-2 project.

A Bloomberg analysis of company data, satellite images and ship-tracking data shows just how far Moscow is willing to go to capture market share.

In the short term, this may provide some wartime profits, but the government’s ultimate goal is to triple LNG exports by 2030, one of the pillars of any post-conflict economy – especially after the loss of Europe as the largest consumer of piped gas.

After the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian oil industry managed to create a so-called “shadow fleet” of hundreds of vessels to transport oil. The publication notes that Russia is likely to imitate this strategy with LNG.

It will be recalled that Washington reacted to this by imposing sanctions, intensifying the commercial struggle for LNG between Russia and the United States, the world’s largest supplier. The Arctic LNG 2 project was sanctioned in November 2023 even before production began.