The US Ministry of Finance has imposed sanctions against Russian LNG tankers

The new sanctions are part of measures aimed at nearly 400 legal entities and individuals for supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The US Treasury has imposed sanctions against seven gas carriers involved in Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. This is reported by Splash.

The tankers Asya Energy, Pioneer and Everest Energy under the flag of Palau, as well as North Air, North Mountain, North Sky and North Way under the flag of Panama, were included in the sanctions list.

Asya Energy and Pioneer were seen in satellite images loading LNG from Novatek’s sub-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 facility. The two vessels, along with the tanker Everest Energy, are associated with Indian company Ocean Speedstar Solutions. She was also added to the sanctions list.

Four other blocked Panamanian-flagged vessels are linked to Dubai-based White Fox Ship Management.

“Trying to circumvent sanctions against the renewed Arctic LNG 2 project, Russian companies have made efforts to purchase used gas carriers, mostly through front companies in third-country jurisdictions. In this way, they are trying to compensate for the critical shortage of available tankers,” the State Department said in a statement.

The vessels of the so-called shadow fleet have opaque ownership, unknown insurers and try to hide their activities by turning off AIS or falsifying GPS coordinates.

Talks about Russia’s potential accumulation of a “shadow” fleet of gas carriers began at the beginning of this year. Thus, industry experts warned that to circumvent sanctions, Moscow could implement a similar scenario, which it did with oil tankers.

The day before, USM wrote that sanctioned Russian oil tankers resumed transportation. They handle the supply of Urals from western Russian ports to Asia.