Data shows that Russia's LNG imports fell by 1.2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2018.

LSEG's preliminary data on Tuesday showed that Russia's LNG exports in the first quarter of this year fell by 1.2% compared to a year ago, reaching 8.1 million metric tonnes.

Due to U.S. sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been unable to increase its LNG exports. The new Arctic LNG 2 facility has effectively been frozen due to the Western sanctions.

According to two sources, Arctic LNG 2 resumed processing in the last month.

According to LSEG, Russia's exports of LNG rose 3.7% in March, from 2.7 millions tons a year earlier.

In March, supplies of LNG to Europe fell 16.5%, to 1,37 million tonnes, due to the sanctions on transhipment that took effect in last month.

Novatek's Yamal plant increased total exports by 3.6% on an annual basis in March to reach 1.75 million tonnes. The plant's first-quarter output increased to 5 million tonnes from 4.9 millions tons during the same period of 2024.

Sakhalin-2 (controlled by Gazprom) exported 900 000 tons of goods from the Pacific Island in March, an increase of 12.5% compared to the same month in the year 2024. Exports of the project have risen to 2.7 millions tons from 2.6 in the first quarter of 2024.

In January, the United States imposed sanctions on Gazprom’s small-scale Portovaya LNG facility located along the Baltic Sea shores. Last month, it loaded a cargo of LNG onto the floating storage and regasification (FSRU), Marshal Vasilevskiy.

Donald Trump, the U.S. president, has stated that he wants to sell more U.S. LNG to Europe and will increase its availability. (Reporting and writing by Oksana Kobieva; editing by David Evans).

(source: Reuters)