Naphtha and fuel oil are loaded onto Clearocean Apollon Clyde Noble tankers at the nearby Ust-Luga Oil terminal.

The Sakhalin-2 LNG export plant is the closest to North Asia, home to the world’s top buyers. The facility supplied nearly 10% of Japan’s LNG needs last year, and hasn’t been targeted by Western sanctions due in part to the need to ensure energy security.

In the last few months of 2023, the US ramped up enforcement of the price cap and imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on entities and ships that carried Russian crude oil above the price cap.

The joint plans of Rosatom and the region include projects for the development of energy infrastructure and the construction of a shift village, landing strip, roads and sea pier, as well as the construction of the world's first low-power nuclear power plant with a Shelf-M reactor of up to 10 MWe.

Russia has delivered the first drop of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its heavily sanctioned flagship project, Arctic LNG-2.

For the ITER project, which is under construction in Cadarache in southern France, Russia's responsibilities include manufacturing 179 of the most energy intensive (up to 5 MW per square metre) panels of the first wall, which is 40% of the total area of ​​the reactor wall.

The US Treasury Department announced the steps Wednesday, including sanctions on Bellatrix Energy Ltd., a Hong Kong-based firm among the shadowy traders that emerged to help Russia keep its oil exports flowing.

Russia is eyeing the Northern Sea Route across the Arctic Ocean to supply the cargoes to the east, to cut the time and cost of bringing its fuel to market.

Russia’s Novatek PJSC, which leads the Arctic LNG 2 project, sent force majeure notices to some of the facility’s buyers,

“The concept assumes that we do not sell power units as something separate. We sell the electricity that is generated using the floating units. For the customer, this means that it does not matter where and how the unit is built. The customer does not take part in its construction. The construction, fuel loading and subsequent operation of the station is provided by Rosatom,” Nikipelov said.

The nation’s plants processed 5.33 million barrels of crude a day in the first six days of the month, down about 81,000 barrels a day from the prior week’s average, according to a person with knowledge of industry data.

The Hungarian government plans to extend the service of the Paks NPP. Four of its reactors, build by Soviet specialists some 40 years ago, are to go out of operation between 2032 and 2037, but their life span may be extended by 20 years, to 2052-2057. At the same time, the plant’s units Five and Six are now being built in accordance with Rosatom’s designs.

Russia is expected to reduce both oil and natural gas production this year, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Oil is projected to fall by 8 million tons to 527 million tons, compared to 535 million tons last year, he said.

Ministers from OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia, meet on Sunday in Vienna.

The European Commission hopes to introduce a "requirement for attestations to also include itemized ancillary costs, such as insurance and freight," on top of a declaration on the price paid for the Russian oil.