Modules for a third Arctic LNG 2 train have reached Belokamenka and TotalEnergies has confirmed its exit. Novatek ships under a third of the liquefaction it has built, into a Chinese terminal that takes nothing else.
Both ends are adding capacity anyway, and only for each other.
The first two topside modules for Arctic LNG 2's third production train have been offloaded at Novatek's Belokamenka yard near Murmansk, though satellite imagery published by Captain last week shows assembly there still largely dormant. In the same week TotalEnergies confirmed its exit.
Chief executive Patrick Pouyanne told the company's second-quarter call that Novatek has initiated the transfer of the French supermajor's 10pct stake to the subsidiary NordLine, authorised by presidential decree in June, and that the Arctic LNG 2 chapter will be over for TotalEnergies.
The plant has been under US sanctions since late 2023, and China is its only known buyer.
Built
Arctic LNG 2 was designed for 19.8mtpa across three trains of 6.6mtpa each. What exists is a good deal less. The first train is complete.
The second has one of its two production strings, the power modules for the rest still sitting in China, which holds it to roughly half its rating.
Work on the third stopped in 2024. Built capacity is therefore nearer 10mtpa than 20, and the first train has separately been reported running below its own capacity.
Shipped
Our ledger counts cargoes leaving the plant: seven in 2024, 17 in 2025 and 26 in the year to 27 July, 50 in all. Most never went to a customer.
Thirty-eight of the 50 went into Novatek's own floating storage, and the first cargo to reach a buyer arrived only on 28 August 2025.
This year's 26 liftings carried 1.74mmt, an annualised rate near 3mmt, under a third of the plant Novatek has built and a sixth of the plant it designed.
Legs
Moving even that much took a rebuilt fleet.
Two vessels, the Aleksey Kosygin and the Christophe De Margerie, take 24 of this year's 26 plant liftings, shuttling to the Murmansk floating storage in the Barents Sea on medians of six and nine days.
A separate pool of 15 carriers loads at Murmansk for the long leg, 23 sailings this year at a median of 39 days, south through Suez until March and round the Cape from April. Only the Iris appears in both.
There was no such division in 2024, when conventional ships took all seven liftings and held them, three for 146 days or more, with no buffer to fill and no buyer to serve.
Murmansk loaded no outbound voyage at all before 2 January.
Beihai
The Chinese end is no tighter. Beihai in Guangxi took 26 arrivals in the year to 27 July, 21 of them by that southern route, amounting to 1.56mmt or roughly 2.7mmt annualised against about 6mtpa of nameplate capacity.
Each one came from Russia, and the terminal has received nothing else since 28 December.
Adding
Both ends are nonetheless provisioning for more, and only for each other.
The Train 3 modules now at Belokamenka belong to a line that would add 6.6mtpa to a plant shipping three, and PipeChina is preparing a second terminal for this cargo, the newly built Longkou in Shandong, reported by Reuters at about 5mtpa and due to start in October.
What both ends are short of is not mere onshore capacity but the equipment sanctions have kept out: the power modules stranded in China and the Arc7 carriers never delivered.
Building on those terms narrows the options rather than widening them, because liquefaction and import capacity dedicated to a single trade is capacity only that trade can use.
TotalEnergies leaving as CNPC and CNOOC stay put moves the same way.
- Built capacity is nearer 10mtpa than the 19.8mtpa designed
- Liftings annualise near 3mmt, under a third of what exists
- Three ice-class ships now shuttle to Murmansk instead of sailing south
- Beihai runs at 2.7mmt against roughly 6mtpa of capacity
(July 29, 2026, Source: LNG Journal)
RUSSIA - GREENH2 - Production