In April 2025, the gas carrier Valera — formerly "Veliky Novgorod," renamed after being added to US sanctions lists — unloaded at the Beihai terminal in southern China. The cargo: liquefied natural gas from the Baltic plant "Portovaya," loaded on January 25. Both — the plant and the vessel — have been under American sanctions since January 2025.
This is already the second confirmed delivery after the restrictions were introduced. The first was in December 2024. According to LSEG and Kpler data, the routes were tracked in open databases in real-time. Nobody hid anything.
How it works without concealment
Before the sanctions, "Portovaya" sent an average of two shipments per month in winter. After the restrictions were introduced — a pause, and from August 2025 — the resumption of deliveries to China. In parallel, as Marine Link reports citing LSEG, the plant sends one shipment per month to Kaliningrad.
Beihai is the same terminal where LNG from another Russian sanctioned project, Arctic LNG-2, arrives. According to OilPrice analysts' estimates, China has already received over a dozen shipments from there.
"They no longer hide"
— France 24, December 2025, citing industry analysts
Why China changed its approach
Until August 2025, Beijing bought only non-sanctioned Russian LNG shipments — at least formally. The change in behavior coincided with two factors: Washington's pressure on Beijing in trade negotiations and simultaneous increases in discounts on Russian gas. The Chinese side receives cheaper gas, Russia — currency to finance the war. There is no enforcement mechanism for Beijing in American sanctions against "Portovaya."
- "Portovaya" — Gazprom's only LNG plant for export, capacity 1.5 million tons per year
- Valera — the only vessel serving this route
- Both were added to OFAC's SDN list in January 2025 in the final days of the Biden administration
- US sanctions prohibit American companies and individuals from conducting transactions with these entities, but do not automatically apply to Chinese buyers
Effectiveness without secondary sanctions
Sanctions against "Portovaya" were introduced as a tool for "degrading the Russian energy sector" — this is how the US Department of the Treasury formulated the objective. However, without secondary sanctions against Chinese buyers and terminal operators, the ban effectively applies only to American counterparties, of which there are none in this chain.
If the Trump administration does not impose secondary sanctions against the Beihai terminal or Chinese importers, "Portovaya" will resume pre-war shipping rates — and do so publicly, in open vessel tracking data.
