U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said President Donald Trump’s priority is to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end, without larger disruptions, when asked how the U.S. would react to Chinese purchases of sanctioned Russian LNG cargoes.
“President Trump’s single greatest goal is prosperity in America and peace abroad,” Wright said in a press conference at the Gastech conference in Milan. “He’s looking at every possible avenue to get that war to end without overly large disruption”.
Arctic LNG 2 was set to become one of Russia’s largest LNG plants, with eventual output of 19.8 million metric tons per year. The project is 60%-owned by Russia’s Novatek.
But it had been included in Western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and has struggled to sell LNG from the project despite beginning production and loading cargoes in August 2024.
Three cargoes from the project have discharged in China so far this year.
(Reporting by Marwa Rashad, Francesca Landini and Emily Chow in Milan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Louise Heavens)