LNG Tanker Gasleys / Everett, Massachusetts /1-29-18
GASELYS
IMO:
9320075
MMSI:
228333700
Call Sign:
FMLU
Flag:
France [FR]
AIS Vessel Type:
Tanker - Hazard D (Recognizable)
Gross Tonnage:
97741
Deadweight:
74300 t
Length Overall x Breadth Extreme:
289.6m × 43.35m
Year Built:
2007
Status:
Active
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/01/29/tanker-unloads-lng-everett-terminal-that-contains-russian-gas/rewj1wKjajaKtLp79irzTI/story.html?et_rid=1745543262&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter
The Russian gas has finally arrived in Boston.
A giant tanker
of liquefied natural gas that unloaded at the Distrigas terminal in
Everett over the past two days included fuel from a plant in Siberia
owned by a Russian company under US sanctions.
Located far above
the Arctic Circle, the $27 billion Yamal gas plant opened in December,
and some of its first output ended up in the cargo that will be used to
heat homes and generate electricity in the Boston area.
The majority owner of the Yamal plant is a Russian company called
Novatek, whose shareholders include an ally of Vladimir Putin, Gennady
Timchenko. The US Treasury initially imposed sanctions that prohibited
US companies from providing new financing to Novatek and another Russian
energy firm in 2014, in response to what the agency had described as
Russia’s destabilization of eastern Ukraine and its annexation of
Crimea.
Treasury officials did not respond to requests for comment about the arrival Monday of the tanker, the Gaselys.
Since these particular sanctions involve just the money that Novatek
could access, energy industry experts said they do not prevent Western
companies from buying the gas produced at its Yamal plant.
“The
company that developed the project was sanctioned, but the gas itself
was not sanctioned,” explained James Henderson, director of natural gas
research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in the United
Kingdom.
It’s unclear how much of the LNG carried by the Gaselys
came from Russia because it was mixed with liquefied gas from other
countries while stored temporarily at a UK facility. The owner of the
Distrigas facility, the French company Engie, bought the fuel on global
spot markets when the extreme cold spell earlier this winter sapped
inventories and drove up prices of natural gas coming in by pipeline.
“We needed an extra cargo to make up for some of the gas we sold
because of the very cold weather,” said Engie spokeswoman Carol
Churchill.
“This transaction is compliant with all US trade laws,”
she added. “There are no imposed sanctions on LNG or oil cargoes that
are partially or totally sourced from Russia. The only sanctions against
Yamal related to financing of construction . . . not purchasing of
fuel.”
The sanctions forced the Yamal’s developers to redo the
plant’s financing and seek outside funders, including loans from Chinese
banks. Novatek owns just over half of the Yamal plant, with the rest
split among the French energy giant Total and two Chinese state
companies.
Jim Bride, president of Energy Tariff Experts LLC in
Cambridge, said the acceptance of Russian gas comes as the United States
is promoting energy independence and targeting exports to counter
Russia’s grip on European gas markets. The importing of Russian gas into
New England, he said, doesn’t help with this narrative.
The Yamal
plant is so far north that the waters around it are frozen solid for
much of the year, and that required the owners to commission
ice-breaking tankers that can sail into ice two meters thick.
After anchoring off the coast for several days, the Gaselys arrived
in Everett Sunday morning, Churchill said; it typically takes up to 20
hours for the ship to unload its cargo.
This was the first
shipment containing Russian gas at the Everett terminal in its five
decades of operation, Churchill said. The company typically gets LNG
from a more temperate place: Trinidad.
The terminal had already
accepted five shipments since mid-December, all from Trinidad. Some of
the gas is fed into the region’s two main pipeline networks, while other
gas is trucked in still-liquid form to storage tanks across New
England. The terminal’s gas is also used for power generation.
But
in anticipation of increased demand this season, Churchill said another
shipment of LNG Engie ordered that is scheduled to arrive in February
from a French terminal will probably include gas from Russia.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.
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