Four US-sanctioned LNG carriers working for Russian interests look set to lose their Panamanian flag registrations.
Reuters reported that Panama’s Maritime Authority said on Wednesday that it has begun a process to cancel flag registrations on the 174,000-cbm sister ships North Air and North Mountain (both built 2023) and newbuildings North Sky (ex-North Star) and North Way (ex-North Wind) due to their links with Russian gas producer Novatek.
The single-shipowning entities of the four vessels, along with Novatek subsidiary New Transshipment — identified as involved in the procurement and leasing of the LNG carriers — were added to the US sanctions list last week.
The four ice-strengthened LNG carriers were originally contracted by NYK and Sovcomflot for Russian business.
But the quartet, originally listed as Singapore-flagged, was delivered to new and now also sanctioned owner White Fox Ship Management, a company listed as based in a business park in Dubai.
The US sanctioned White Fox in August 2024.
The LNG carriers have been lifting cargoes from Novatek’s Yamal LNG plant that have been discharged in northern Europe, with one vessel shipping a cargo eastbound via the Northern Sea Route.
But recently the vessels have been sitting idle on Russia’s northern Arctic coastline.
Flag states have been shying away from Russia’s LNG shadow fleet.
In August, the Palau International Ship Registry temporarily revoked the registration of three older LNG carriers lifting Russian cargoes sanctioned by the US authorities.
The Palau registry appears to have permanently withdrawn the registration on the vessels — the 138,000-cbm Pioneer (ex-LNG Pioneer, built 2005), the 137,231-cbm Asya Energy (ex-Trader IV, built 2002) and the 138,000-cbm Everest Energy (ex-Metagas Everett, built 2003) — at the start of October.
As of 1 October, the listings for Palau under the flags of two of the vessels in the Equasis database are marked with the word “False”.
The Everest Energy is listed under a new name, the Metagas Everest, as of October, with its flag detailed as “unknown”.
