Odyssey of Russian LNG: where will liquefied gas exports go?

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented on the current state and prospects of Russian LNG exports to Forbes magazine.

In the first half of 2026, 97% of the volumes from the Yamal LNG enterprise went to the EU, and in the same period last year - 83%, Belogoryev notes. Supplies from this plant to South Korea and Taiwan have dropped to zero, while exports to China have fallen 4.5 times, and they are being actively replaced by Arctic LNG-2. This does not mean, the expert says, that the demand for gas in Asia has decreased, on the contrary, the demand for fuel has increased significantly due to the crisis in the Persian Gulf. It's just that the EU, which provides Yamal LNG with the shortest transport shoulder, intercepts almost all of its exports.

Where Yamal LNG will redirect supplies after the introduction of a complete ban on LNG supplies to Europe depends on the sanctions conditions that will develop after January 1, the expert says. If sanctions are not imposed against the project, it has a good chance of redirecting the bulk of supplies to the countries of South and Southeast Asia, problems with Qatari gas favor this.

Arctic LNG-2 is making some confusion in the statistics of international LNG trade, the analyst notes.

Firstly, he explains, the plant actively uses transshipment within the country, in Kamchatka and in the Murmansk region. Because of this, shipments from the factory and shipments to end users are separated in time and sometimes quite significantly, especially during winter navigation along the Northern Sea Route. Secondly, due to sanctions, some shipments may not be counted by shipping trackers, they just don't always see them. But overall, the estimate of 1.63 million tons in the first six months is close to reality.

The fate of the Portovaya and Cryogaz-Vysotsk plants that have been sanctioned by the United States is developing in different ways. The first managed to deliver the fourth LNG cargo to China since December 2025, and there is no data available for the second plant, but Belogoryev admits that this enterprise can ship some volumes to the domestic market in tankers and small vessels.

Sakhalin-2's annual production will remain at just over 10 million tons per year, and the total volume of shipments is stable and increased by 2% year-on-year to 5.15 million tons in the first half of 2026, Belogoryev notes. According to him, Japan remains the main market for the Sakhalin-2 project (52% of all shipments), China (35%) is the second, and South Korea accounts for the rest.