Arctic LNG in a Green Wrapper
Article originally published by Arctida.
Can Natural Gas Be Considered Eco-Friendly? A Case Study of Yamal LNG
A record-breaking heatwave in Europe continues to claim thousands of lives, while global temperatures are on the verge of breaching the critical 1.5°C threshold. Researchers emphasise that increasingly frequent and damaging extreme weather events are directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, and are calling for a phase-out of fossil-fuel-based energy.
Against the backdrop of the climate crisis and an increasingly climate-driven global energy market, Russia is ramping up liquefied natural gas (LNG) production to record levels. At the same time, Russian officials and producing companies are actively marketing it as a “green” fuel.
Using Yamal LNG as a case study, we examine how well this narrative holds up against reality. Read on to discover the project’s true carbon footprint, why a significant portion of its emissions never makes it into official corporate reporting, how Arctic LNG logistics operate, the environmental risks posed by potential tanker accidents, and whether any alternatives to fossil fuels exist in the Arctic.
Reading time: approx. 15 minutes. In the first section, we examine how Russian officials and the head of Novatek promote gas as a “green” fuel. In the second, we explain the climate damage caused by methane, the primary component of LNG. In the third, we assess Yamal LNG’s emissions and demonstrate why corporate reporting does not always capture the full climate footprint of its products. Next, we look at the project’s logistics and the emissions and environmental risks they create. The fifth section provides a detailed breakdown of LNG tanker accident risks. Finally, we conclude by exploring why the choice of renewable energy sources (RES) is particularly critical for the Arctic.
How gas turned “green”
Russia holds the world’s largest resource base, with one-fifth of global natural gas reserves. In 2024, Russian LNG production hit a historic high of 34.7 million tonnes, with the lion’s share coming from Yamal LNG at 21.2 million tonnes. In 2025 alone, this single project generated $8.4 billion from European buyers.
What you need to know about Yamal LNG
Yamal LNG is one of the largest new corporate residents on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia. Its mission is to develop the South Tambey gas condensate field, liquefy the extracted natural gas, and export the resulting LNG to European and Asian markets.
The project kicked off in 2010 when the Russian government adopted a “Comprehensive Plan for LNG Production Development on the Yamal Peninsula.” Throughout the 2010s, the company signed deals with international firms from France, Japan, China, and Germany, bringing them on as contractors and equipment suppliers to build and commission the project. Foreign companies also acted as offtakers and even shareholders; France’s TotalEnergies, alongside China’s CNPC and the Silk Road Fund, remain shareholders in the project.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities have consistently promoted gas as a “transitional” and low-carbon fuel. In a welcome address to participants of the III All-Russian Gas Forum, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister stated that the use of “blue fuel” is economical, environmentally friendly, and “contributes to achieving climate change mitigation goals.” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed this sentiment, asserting that Russia assigns natural gas a key role in the energy transition as the “cleanest of all hydrocarbons” and an “ideal transitional fuel.”
More on how Russia shields fossil fuels in the climate agenda
In Russia’s updated Climate Doctrine, adopted in 2023, direct mentions of coal, oil, and gas as the primary drivers of climate change were omitted. Instead, Russia’s carbon neutrality plans rely on expanding gas and nuclear power, as well as increasing the carbon sequestration capacity of its forests.
At the same time, despite being a signatory to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Russia has taken a blocking position at climate negotiations, seeking to prevent even the mention of fossil fuels in conference decisions. Moreover, Russia has stated that it does not intend to participate in the UNFCCC initiative to develop roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels. It was also one of eight countries that voted against the UN General Assembly resolution supporting the International Court of Justice’s ruling, according to which UNFCCC parties are obliged to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and inaction or harmful initiatives should be considered a violation of international law.
The corporate rhetoric of Novatek — the majority shareholder in the Yamal project — is aligned with the same narrative. Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson has repeatedly called LNG an environmentally clean fuel and argued that gas should play a key role in the “smooth transformation” of global energy and the replacement of more carbon-intensive fuels.
But is LNG truly environmentally friendly and climate-friendly?
The hidden side of LNG
Natural gas consists predominantly of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. Once released into the atmosphere, its warming impact over a 20-year timescale is more than 80 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. Although methane breaks down in the atmosphere much faster, it traps heat far more effectively. This is why cutting methane emissions is considered one of the fastest ways to take the immediate pressure off the climate.
Methane emissions are not limited to industrial processes. In the Arctic, for instance, the gas escapes due to permafrost thaw. Average temperatures in the region are rising three to four times faster than the global average, and this warming directly affects the depth of thawing soils and drives up methane emissions.
This creates a vicious cycle: the more greenhouse gases from human activity enter the atmosphere, the more the permafrost thaws, releasing additional greenhouse gases and destabilizing the infrastructure built upon it. This, in turn, can lead to industrial accidents. Some experts believe that permafrost thawing may have caused the 2020 accident at a Nornickel facility, which spilled more than 20,000 tonnes of oil products into the environment.
Burning natural gas does not eliminate its climate impact either: methane is simply converted into carbon dioxide. While carbon dioxide is a less potent greenhouse gas, it is far more persistent, remaining in the atmosphere for centuries, while also driving ocean acidification and altering marine ecosystems.
Consequently, comparing gas only to more carbon-intensive alternatives — a favorite tactic of Russian officials and Novatek representatives — does not make it eco-friendly. This argument artificially narrows the choice to different types of fossil fuels, whereas a true energy transition aims to reduce reliance on them entirely, rather than replacing one carbon-heavy resource with another. Over the past five years, solar and wind capacities have exceeded four terawatts, while the cost of electricity generated from RES has plummeted to the lowest among all energy sources.
It is no surprise that leading international climate coalitions, including Climate Action Network and Friends of the Earth, do not consider LNG a transition fuel. In their view, a genuine energy transformation must rely on renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements.
How much does Yamal LNG emit?
According to Arctida’s calculations, the climate footprint of Yamal LNG’s output could exceed 50 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent per year — if one takes into account not just the liquefaction process itself, but also the eventual combustion of the gas by end-users.
How we crunched the numbers
Amid restrictions on the publication of industry statistics in recent years, Yamal LNG has not disclosed full data on its LNG production volumes. For its estimates, Arctida used Novatek’s statements at SPIEF-2025 and analysis from the Norwegian Centre for High North Logistics.
The climate impact of burning the gas produced annually by Yamal LNG is comparable to the annual emissions of entire countries — Sweden, Norway, or Portugal, for instance. To generate an equivalent climate footprint, an average Russian would need to live for more than four million years.
The 50-million-tonne figure, however, differs markedly from the picture presented in the project’s own public reporting. Since 2022, Yamal LNG has published greenhouse gas emissions reports in line with international voluntary reporting standards. But these documents do not cover the full lifecycle of the product: emissions from the final stage — the use of the gas by consumers — are not included in the calculations.
Formally, this is not a violation. Voluntary reporting allows companies to define their own boundaries for emissions accounting. Yet the choice of these boundaries fundamentally alters the final figure. For fossil fuel producers, the bulk of the climate footprint often arises not during extraction or processing, but when the product is burned.
More on Yamal LNG’s voluntary reporting
The project estimates its greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, an international accounting and reporting standard that provides companies, organisations, and governments with a unified methodology for measuring, managing, and disclosing emissions data. The Protocol is quite flexible — companies can, for example, choose which Scope 3 indicators to include in their reports.
And this is precisely what industrial giants like Yamal LNG do: they exclude Category 11 (“Use of Sold Products”) from their reporting, since this portion of the carbon footprint occurs beyond the enterprise’s own fence. In addition, the reports also omit emissions from LNG shipping, another significant component of Yamal gas’s carbon footprint.
For extractive, carbon-intensive projects, voluntary emissions disclosure can function as a tool for fossil fuel climate-washing — a way to stay relevant in a market that is becoming increasingly climate-conscious. Yet global trends are leaving the fossil fuel industry with fewer and fewer avenues to claim environmental credibility: voluntary reporting is gradually becoming mandatory, and climate inaction and damage are already being framed within international law.
Learn more
The EU is tightening regulations for carbon-intensive industries and demanding more data on emissions across the entire supply chain. Among these mechanisms is CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism), often referred to as the carbon tax. CBAM extends methane emissions oversight to supply chains, including imports, alongside new sustainability reporting standards.
Similar processes are unfolding in Asia, the very markets where Russian LNG producers are hoping to redirect their exports. China is developing a unified national emissions management system and is discussing the introduction of carbon border payments modelled on the EU’s by 2027. Taiwan has already launched such a mechanism.
At the end of June, a Paris court ordered TotalEnergies, which holds a 20% stake in Yamal LNG, to update its duty of vigilance plan and include climate risks associated with emissions from the use of its oil and gas products by consumers. The court noted that this category accounts for around 90% of TotalEnergies’ total carbon footprint and must be factored into the company’s climate risk assessment. The ruling sends a signal to multinational oil and gas corporations that they are accountable for all their emissions, including those generated through the use of their products, regardless of the buyer’s location.
The price of Arctic logistics
Yamal LNG is more than just a massive onshore infrastructure for extracting and liquefying natural gas. To deliver the fuel to buyers, the project relies on complex Arctic logistics: specialized ice-class LNG carriers, ship-to-ship cargo transfers at sea, and further transportation on conventional tankers. This entire chain carries its own climate and environmental footprint.
LNG is shipped out of the port of Sabetta on Arc7 ice-class tankers. These vessels are custom-built to operate in northern seas, capable of navigating independently through first-year ice up to 2.1 meters thick. However, in certain sections of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), ice thickness can reach up to 3 meters depending on the season. Therefore, even for these specialized vessels, icebreaker escort along the NSR is recommended year-round, particularly during winter.
The gas is then transferred to lighter, more conventional LNG carriers, which sail to buyers in open-water conditions. This transshipment scheme is partly driven by the high operating costs of specialised Arctic tankers. In turn, this process places an additional burden on the climate and the marine ecosystem, not only through fuel consumption but also due to noise pollution, which is particularly hazardous to cetaceans.
Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanction restrictions, Arc7 tankers could sail to European ports for offloading and transshipment. Following the EU ban on transshipment operations for Russian cargoes, the key accessible location left for Yamal LNG has been the area near Kildin Island in the Barents Sea, close to the Kola Peninsula. There, LNG is transferred ship-to-ship onto conventional LNG carriers or vessels with a lower ice class. They then proceed to their final destinations — mostly in Europe, though a portion of the supply is directed to Asia.
To date, the bulk of Yamal LNG’s exports has been oriented toward the European market. However, Russian officials have already announced plans to redirect supplies to “friendly” Asian countries amid the EU’s planned phase-out of Russian gas.
If these volumes are indeed redirected to Asia, the logistics will become even more complex. Specialized tankers will have to cover greater distances along the Northern Sea Route, burning more diesel fuel and facing additional Arctic navigation risks.
An alternative would be to transship the cargo onto other LNG carriers and deliver it via the longer route through the Indian Ocean. However, this option also entails additional emissions, pollution, and risks to the marine environment.
What else increases the risk of accidents
Yamal LNG faces another operational challenge: the maintenance of its Arctic fleet. Europe is closing off not only its market to Russian LNG but also the possibility of repairing Arc7 tankers, which require regular scheduled maintenance. Previously, these vessels could call at the Danish shipyard Fayard for repairs, but new sanctions have shut that option down.
Russia’s domestic capacity for servicing such tankers is extremely limited. The only shipyard equipped for these operations is the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex in Primorsky Krai. In 2025, the first Russian-built Arc7 tanker, the Alexey Kosygin — destined for Arctic LNG 2 — was launched there. However, the yard itself is overstretched, with more than 20 vessels currently under construction. Other options are also uncertain. South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, which originally built Arc7 tankers for Russian projects, is unlikely to accept sanctioned vessels for repairs, while Chinese shipyards have already encountered difficulties in repairing such tankers.
What are the risks of an LNG tanker spill in the Arctic?
Accurately assessing the potential consequences of an accident involving LNG tankers is highly complex. The lack of major historical precedents with gas carriers means most available data relies heavily on predictive modeling.
“A common misconception is that LNG is inherently explosive. This is not true — the attack on the Arctic Metagas proved otherwise. One or two cargo tanks were breached; the cargo leaked and evaporated but did not explode. While an LNG explosion on a tanker is not impossible, it is extremely difficult to trigger — it requires a very specific set of conditions,” an environmental expert, speaking to Arctida on the condition of anonymity, explained.
What else the sanctioned Arctic Metagas incident reveals
Although the incident involving the Arctic Metagas occurred in the Mediterranean Sea rather than the Arctic, securing the damaged, sanctioned LNG tanker proved deeply problematic even in highly accessible waters. Following the incident, the crew evacuated, leaving the vessel unmanned and adrift in the Mediterranean for nearly two months.
Non-governmental organizations, meanwhile, warned of the urgent need to resolve the crisis. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) cautioned that a spill or explosion could result in large-scale, long-term contamination of the marine environment and atmosphere, calling for coordinated, transparent international action to stabilize the vessel as quickly as possible.
Arctida appealed to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and EU authorities, urging them to halt the tanker’s free drift and eliminate the threat of LNG and diesel leaks.
However, intervention by European nations was seemingly hindered by the legal risks of interacting with a sanctioned vessel. Consequently, the primary burden of ensuring safety fell on Libya, toward whose coast the tanker was drifting. Libyan authorities warned that fuel remained on board, posing severe environmental risks. Prior to the accident, the Arctic Metagas carried 60,000 tons of LNG and 900 tons of diesel fuel, while methane was actively venting from its ruptured containment tanks.
Several towing attempts failed — initially due to a storm and later due to a snapped towline. The damaged vessel was only successfully towed to port in late April.
According to the expert, for a tanker explosion to occur, the LNG must remain confined — for instance, fully sealed for transport — while being subjected to intense, continuous external heating for several dozen minutes. If such conditions are met, it could trigger a catastrophic explosion comparable in scale to a nuclear detonation.
However, a hull breach leading to depressurization and a cargo leak is a far more probable scenario. Beyond the direct release of massive volumes of methane straight into the atmosphere, depressurization temporarily generates a dense cryogenic cloud. Because LNG is stored onboard at approximately −160°C, this cloud devastates the surrounding ecosystem within its dispersion radius, depending on weather conditions.
A secondary, yet equally severe danger in a tanker accident is an oil spill. In addition to their LNG cargo, Arc7-class tankers are equipped with diesel fuel reserves, primarily used for navigating through Arctic ice. Depending on the route’s length, a tanker can carry up to 3,000 tons of petroleum products.
Liquid fuel spills would be uniquely difficult to mitigate in the Arctic. The anonymous environmental expert pointed to the collision of the Volgoneft tankers in the Black Sea in December 2024, which spilled between 2,400 and 3,700 tons of fuel oil. Even in those highly accessible waters, the cleanup was effectively conducted from the shoreline rather than the open sea.
“What exactly can you clean up from the shore in the Arctic? And who is going to do it? Furthermore, heavy fuel oil spreads much slower than diesel. In other words, cleaning up petroleum spills in the Arctic is fundamentally impossible. This is especially true in the Russian Arctic, particularly if the accident occurs far from existing infrastructure, such as a port,” the expert told Arctida.
Efforts to respond to an oil spill along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) are severely hampered not only by the sheer length of the route and the lack of emergency infrastructure but also by volatile, unpredictable ice and storm conditions, which are currently being exacerbated by the climate crisis.
According to Arctida’s calculations based on official data, 15 vessel accidents occurred in Russia’s Arctic seas and ports in 2024 alone, accounting for 17% of all maritime and inland waterway incidents nationwide.
Additionally, vessels frequently become beset by ice along the NSR, requiring icebreaker assistance to break free. In November 2021, a sudden deterioration in ice conditions left 18 vessels stranded simultaneously.
Predictive modeling shows that on the transit route from Sabetta to Murmansk — a corridor regularly traversed by Yamal LNG tankers — the probability of a vessel encountering an accident due to ice compression stands at 2.3%.
The climate verdict on LNG
Russia is not only among the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases but also remains one of the primary sources of methane emissions. A significant portion of them is associated with uncontrolled emissions linked to fossil fuel extraction.
And although natural gas does not produce the same particulate pollution as coal, nor does it create spills like oil, it remains a fossil fuel with a high climate footprint, along with specific risks and harms associated with the production and transportation of the fuel. Comparing gas only to “dirtier” alternatives helps Russian officials and producing companies frame continued dependence on fossil fuels as part of the energy transition. This helps expand opportunities for exporting Russian energy resources in an increasingly climate-oriented energy market.
At the same time, today any fossil fuel loses when compared to renewable energy alternatives, if you look at the entire production and transportation lifecycle. In 2024, 91% of newly installed renewables generated energy more cheaply than the fossil fuel plants with the cheapest kilowatt-hour of energy. And the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of wind power stations stand at roughly 11 grams of CO₂-equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity, compared to 300–900 grams of CO₂-equivalent for natural gas.
For the Arctic, this choice is particularly critical. The region is already facing the consequences of the climate crisis. The shrinking area of sea ice deprives polar bears and walruses of territories for raising offspring, rising average temperatures and the thawing of permafrost destroy the tundra ecosystem, intensifying fires destroy forests and disperse soot with hazardous impurities, and abnormal precipitation leads to large-scale flooding.
At the same time, the Arctic has the potential for less harmful energy solutions. Solar panels perform more efficiently in the cold, coastal zones with strong winds are well-suited for wind power, and a combination of different sources and storage systems can reduce remote territories’ dependence on fossil fuel imports. This does not eliminate the complexities of the energy transition in northern regions, but it shows that the choice is not reduced to deciding which type of fossil fuel should be considered “less dirty.”
