The sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project from Russia has boosted gas output so as to reach record levels in August 2025, as the export facility happens to keep loading cargoes that have struggled to find buyers. Apparently, the Novatek PJSC-led plant’s natural gas production averaged almost 15 million cubic meters per day for almost the entire month of August 2025. All this also likely translated to a certain higher output of LNG, which is a gas that has been cooled to a liquid form so as to ease transportation. The facility, which happens to be located above the Arctic Circle, is regarded to be very crucial for the plans of Russia to go ahead and triple LNG production by the end of this decade and tap certain novel gas markets post a sharp decline in the pipeline exports to certain major buyers across Europe.
While all these ambitions are very much squeezed due to the international sanctions post the full-scale invasion by the Kremlin of Ukraine, there are only five tankers, which are also subject to restrictions, that appear to have loaded LNG cargoes since June 2025, with almost all of them now heading toward Asia.
Apparently, it still remains unclear as to where the vessels are going to unload and whether the cargoes have gone on to find any foreign buyers, but all of this does suggest that Russia may well be finding certain new ways around the sanctions.
It is well to be noted that the Arctic LNG 2 project from Russia went on to ramp up the daily gas production to over 25 million cubic meters every day on Aug. 25 and Aug. 26.
This sort of latest hike may as well signal plans to go ahead and keep loading the LNG. In December 2023, at the time of the launch, the plant went on to pump an average of almost 13.7 million cubic meters of gas every day.
Interestingly, the La Perouse LNG vessel is at present heading in the direction of the facility, as per the ship-tracking data that has been compiled by Bloomberg. If it gets loaded, that is going to be the sixth export in 2025 from Arctic LNG 2 project from Russia, and there is still no clear sign of the rest of the five cargoes finding the buyers.
Notably, the Christophe de Margerie tanker remains loaded nearby the Koryak floating storage unit in Russia’s Far East, which is also sanctioned by the US, and the Voskhod as well as the Zarya vessels are sailing in the Bering Sea, whereas the Buran and Iris ships are heading towards the east across the Northern Sea Route.
