International sanctions have postponed for several years Russia’s plans to increase its annual production of liquefied natural gas, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in comments to a state-run channel, Russian media reported, as well as the US edition of Bloomberg.
Novak said the Kremlin’s goal “was to reach 100 million tonnes” of liquefied natural gas production per year.
Obviously, there will be a delay (in achieving the goal – ed.) for several years because of the sanctions restrictions,” he said, without specifying the timeframe.
According to Bloomberg, earlier Russia aimed to produce 100 million tonnes of supercooled fuel by 2030 and achieve a global market share of 20%. At the same time, Western countries, including the U.S., have imposed several rounds of energy sanctions, particularly on liquefied natural gas, to reduce the Kremlin’s revenues that are funding the war in Ukraine.
The U.S. blacklisted all current and future Russian liquefied natural gas projects, with the exception of Yamal LNG, led by Novatek. Washington has also imposed sanctions on the Russian navy for shipping super-cold fuel abroad.
Recently, however, discounted sub-sanctioned cargoes have begun to be used in China, which does not recognise Western restrictions.
Bloomberg notes that Russia became the Asian country’s largest LNG supplier last month, overtaking Australia.
In November, the Financial Times reported that U.S. officials were actively travelling around Europe promoting U.S. gas and oil supplies and pushing to drive Russian fuel out of the market. According to them, Washington seeks to remove “every last molecule” of Russian gas from the European energy sector.