Russia has added four LNG carriers to its fleet, LSEG ship-tracking data and the Russian ship register showed on Wednesday, which could help the country to increase its market share ahead of an EU ban on Russian gas imports.
The European Union in January gave its final approval to a ban on Russian gas imports by late 2027.
The bloc has also imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its war on Ukraine. The sanctions have limited Russia's access to the vessels it needs to gain a bigger share of the global LNG market.
The Russian register on Wednesday showed four LNG tankers: the Orion (former name Sea LNG), the Luch (former name Lake the LNG), Mercury (former name Zahit LNG) and the Kosmos (Cagri LNG). All the vessels were built in 2005 to 2006.
Data from the Equasis vessel information system also showed that the tankers changed owners in February this year.
The Kosmos and Luch were transferred to Mighty Ocean Shipping Ltd, registered in Hong Kong, while the Orion and Mercury came under the ownership of Celtic Maritime & Trading SA, registered in Turkey.
All the vessels have changed their names and been reflagged to Russia. Previously, the tankers were owned by an Omani company.
LSEG data showed that all four tankers were heading north in the Atlantic Ocean.
The destination of the LNG carrier Luch is listed as Murmansk, near to where the Saam LNG floating storage unit is located.
The facility is used for transshipping LNG from the Arctic LNG-2 project. Ship-to-ship LNG transshipment operations are also being conducted near the port for the Yamal LNG project, transferring cargoes from ice-class tankers to conventional gas carriers.
(Reuters - Reporting by Reuters; editing by Barbara Lewis)