The first commercial transshipment of an LNG cargo off Russia's Kildin Island has started at a new site in Arctic waters.
Russian sources said the 174,174-cbm Yamal Spirit (built 2019) lined up alongside the 172,600-cbm Arc7 LNG carrier Nikolay Yevgenov (built 2019).
Volumes are due to be transferred into the Yamal Spirit from the Arc7 ship for onward shipment west.
This is the first commercial transfer at this site, to the north of Murmansk.
A test mooring took place off Kildin in late July, when Sovcomflot's 172,600-cbm Arc7 vessel Christophe de Margerie (built 2017) was used to check the readiness of the anchorage for LNG carriers.
State nuclear authority Rosatom used the ice breaker Ob and ice-breaking tug Yuribey for this exercise.
Novatek-Western Arctic is overseeing the ship-to-shipoperations at the site, Rosatom said.
Bigger bases
Parent liquefaction developer Novatek plans to transship cargoes exported from its Yamal LNG plant on its existing 15-ship Arc7 LNG carrier fleet at the Kildin site.
The cargoes will be transferred onto conventional LNG tonnage allowing the Arc7 fleet to shuttle shipments in and out of the plant through the potentially ice-bound waters.
Aside from an area for mooring LNG carriers, a multifunctional vessel will be on site to provide a work base and accommodation for personnel working on transshipment.
The Kildin Island anchorage is on the eastern part of the Kildin Strait, between Kildin Island and the Kola Peninsula.
Prior to this, Yamal cargoes had been transshipped off Honningsvag in northern Norway.
In the longer term, Russia is building two larger transshipment bases on the Northern Sea Route — at Ura Bay near Murmansk in the west and at Kamchatka in the east.
These will each be home to up to two 360,000-cbm LNG floating storage units.
The first two of these were ordered at South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in June by Russian state transport leasing company GTLK for delivery in 2022.
Russia wants to open up the NSR to commercial shipping traffic on a year-round basis and is planning to send LNG cargoes through the Arctic route during this coming winter.
