By Xu Shuying

At noon on 12th August, ship ‘Rusanov’ from Port of Sabetta on the Yamal Peninsula in Russia entered Yangkou Port slowly, and started its second meeting with China National Petroleum Corporation Jiangsu LNG Receiving Terminal. It is also the 73rd LNG ship from Yamal received and unloaded by Jiangsu LNG Receiving Terminal since the ‘Rusanov’ loaded with the first shipment of Yamal LNG passed the Arctic Northeast Passage and arrived at Yangkou Port. Up to now, the terminal has received and unloaded in total over 4.76 million tons of the Arctic ‘offshore gas’.

The shipping season of the Arctic Route (Northeast Passage) is in the summer and autumn ice-melting season from July to October. At that time, the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere is relatively higher, and icebreakers can sail into the sea. This period also happens to coincide with the peak gas consumption during the summer in our country. ‘Rusanov’ is a custom-made ship for Yamal project’s‘Arctic icebreaking route’. It is 299 m long and 50 m wide. It has Arc7 bidirectional ice-breaking capability, which is currently the highest icebreaking level of commercial ships in the world. It can continuously break through Arctic ice up to 2.1 meters thick and freely navigate in extremely low temperatures of minus 52 degrees Celsius. After the 73,000 thousand tons of ‘offshore gas’ it carried was brought ashore, it can turn into 100 million cubic meters of natural gas, which can generate about more than 500 million kWh power.

Yamal LNG project is the first ultra large energy cooperation project implemented by Russia since China proposed ‘the Belt and Road’ Initiative. The project is located within the Arctic Circle in Russia. It is the largest liquefied natural gas project carried out in the Arctic region in the world up to now. Jiangsu LNG Receiving Terminal, as an important node in China Russia natural gas trade, received and unloaded the first shipment of liquefied natural gas supplied to China of the project successfully in 2018.