Tanker spoofing its location seen taking sanctioned LNG to China
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China has made greater efforts to purchase blacklisted Russian gas, even as Western nations try to make it tougher to do so.
PHOTO: AFP
BEIJING - A tanker carrying US-sanctioned Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and masking its location was spotted near China, according to SynMax, suggesting Beijing is stepping up its efforts to buy the fuel.
CCH Gas, a vessel with a registered owner in Hong Kong, was detected south-east of the island of Hainan in southern China on Nov 10, the satellite-analytics company said.
The ship has been signalling that it is near the eastern coast of Malaysia since late October, apparently “spoofing” its location, a common dark-fleet tactic to avoid detection.
Satellite images taken by Copernicus Sentinel-2 on Nov 9 also show the ship going to southern China, according to Bloomberg analysis. CCH Gas is heading towards the Beihai import terminal in the Guangxi region, which Beijing has designated as the sole entry point for sanctioned Russian gas.
In mid-October, satellite images showed CCH Gas alongside a tanker that ship-tracking data indicated was the Perle, which was carrying LNG from Russia’s Portovaya plant
The positioning was typical of a ship-to-ship transfer, and suggests CCH Gas was in the process of receiving sanctioned fuel.
China has made greater efforts to purchase blacklisted Russian gas, even as Western nations try to make it tougher to do so. Another US-sanctioned plant, Arctic LNG 2, started delivering blacklisted fuel to China in late August.
Bloomberg News could not find contact information for the registered shipowners and management companies for CCH Gas and Perle. BLOOMBERG
