Gazprom: First LNG Delivery Via "Northern Sea Route"

Link to Oil & Gas Journal:

The marketing arm of OAO Gazprom reports an LNG carrier it holds under charter successfully delivered last month the first LNG cargo via the “Northern Sea Route,” that is, over the top of Europe to Asia via seas usually icebound.

Gazprom Marketing & Trading employed the 147,500-cu m Ob River LNG carrier operated by Dynagas (Greece) to move a cargo during Nov. 9-18 of this year from Statoil’s Snohvit plant in Hammerfest, Norway, to Japan’s Tobata regasification terminal.

The company reported that waters of the Barents and Kara seas were mostly ice-free on the voyage, but passage between Vilkitskogo and Bering straits encountered “young ice” nearly 1 ft thick.