Dark ship appears to transfer US sanctioned Russian LNG off Malaysia

By Stephen Stapczynski

 

A dark tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from a US-sanctioned Russian export plant has positioned itself for a rare open-water fuel transfer off the coast of Malaysia, satellite images show, in a demonstration of the increasingly circuitous routes taken by Moscow to evade Western restrictions.

 

The Perle, which was sanctioned by the US earlier this year, is currently anchored parallel to another vessel approximately 90 kilometers (55 miles) east of the Malaysian peninsula, according to Sentinel-2 satellite images taken Oct. 18 and earlier ship-tracking data. The position is typical of a ship-to-ship maneuver and suggests the two are in the process of transferring cargo.

 

While the area has been a hot spot for open-water transfers of sensitive crude, often between so-called dark-fleet tankers that use a range of practices to evade sanctions, such operations are technically challenging and unusual for natural gas.

 

Bloomberg analysis suggests this could be the first documented occurrence of Russian LNG transferred in waters off Malaysia.

 

Like many other vessels carrying Russian LNG and struggling to find buyers, the Perle has been on a long journey to Asia — and not before idling for months earlier this year. It loaded an LNG cargo from the Portovaya plant on Russia’s Baltic coast as early as February, according to data from Kpler, an analytics firm that tracks ship data. 

 

It then appears to have waited for months before heading to Asia in July, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope.

 

The Portovaya plant hasn’t exported to a foreign buyer since the US sanctioned the facility in January, according to ship-tracking data, meaning this is likely to be its first cargo to head east in almost a year.

 

While Bloomberg has tracked the Perle’s path to date, it isn’t currently transmitting its location, according to ship-tracking data — common practice by shadow-fleet ships masking their exact whereabouts. Bloomberg News wasn’t immediately able to identify the other vessel. 

 

Russia has stepped up political and other efforts to find buyers for its gas, even as Western nations seek to curb Moscow’s LNG exports. Another US-sanctioned plant, Arctic LNG 2, started delivering the blacklisted fuel to China in late August, a move that coincided with a visit to Beijing by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

The Perle tanker is managed by a company named Dreamer Shipmanagement LLC-FZ, which uses the Meydan hotel in Dubai as its registered address, according to shipping database Equasis. That location is used by a number of other firms that have helped Russia assemble a fleet of vessels to transport sanctioned gas. 

 

Read More: After Oil, Russia May Now Be Building a Shadow Fleet for Gas

 

Dreamer Shipmanagement does not have a registered email address or phone number. The Meydan hotel did not respond to Bloomberg’s queries or to a request to connect with the company on Sunday.