Bloomberg: Biggest Arctic Gas Project Seeking Route Around U.S. Sanctions

Total SA (FP) and its partners will use a record 16 ice-breaking tankers to smash through floes en route to and from the Arctic’s biggest liquefied natural-gas development. They’re still looking for a way around a freeze in U.S. financing.

With 22 wells drilled, and a runway and harbor built for the $27 billion project in Russia’s Yamal Peninsula, where temperatures can reach 50 degrees below zero Celsius, Total, OAO Novatek (NVTK) and China National Petroleum Corp. have little choice but to push ahead.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank this year halted a study into funding the plans to ship gas from Yamal, or End of Earth in the native Nenets tongue, to buyers around the world as President Barack Obama’s administration imposed sanctions on Russia. The action by the bank, which offers credit assistance to companies buying the nation’s goods and services, effectively blocked the project from borrowing in the U.S. currency.
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