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Tanker With Russian Gas to Land in Boston Over the Weekend

Tanker with Russian natural gas may land over the weekend, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Tanker With Russian Gas to Land in Boston Over the Weekend
The Gaselys liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker sits at the Engie SA Everett import terminal in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. (Photographer: Scott Eisen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The tanker carrying Russian natural gas that’s been sitting outside of Boston Harbor for days will probably land over the weekend, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Gaselys carries liquefied natural gas originally produced in Siberia, according to vessel tracking data. The ship, poised to dock at Engie SA’s Everett import terminal, would be the first LNG shipment from anywhere other than Trinidad and Tobago in about three years.

Tanker With Russian Gas to Land in Boston Over the Weekend

“It is expected to be in the port over the weekend,” Luke Pinneo, chief petty officer at the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston, said in a telephone interview.

The delay in bringing the ship into the harbor “is not unusual,’’ according to Pinneo. Inspections can take as long as three days, depending on the time line for getting a Coast Guard boat with a boarding team to it and the specific safety concerns being addressed, he said.

Guiding an LNG tanker in is a multi-agency effort with federally mandated protocols, Pinneo said.

Tanker With Russian Gas to Land in Boston Over the Weekend

Gaselys loaded its cargo at the Isle of Grain terminal near London, where another tanker had unloaded the Russian LNG. French energy giant Engie bought the cargo on the spot market in early January “due to the higher demand for LNG resulting from the extremely cold weather here in New England,” Carol Churchill, a spokeswoman at Engie’s Everett terminal said in an email Thursday afternoon. She said the Coast Guard has the final authority as to when the ship will dock at Everett.

A second tanker named Provalys will pick up Russian natural gas from Dunkirk, France, and may reach the U.S. on about Feb. 15, according to Kpler SAS, a cargo-tracking company. The tankers would arrive at a time when New England is paying a hefty premium for supplies as pipeline capacity limits flows of cheap shale gas from other parts of the country in the peak demand season.

Engie purchased that cargo from Dunkirk before the winter season began because “we anticipate LNG demand greater than what we had already scheduled from Trinidad” and scheduled it for the latter half of the winter, Churchill said. “At the time of purchase, we only knew that the cargo would be sourced from Northwestern Europe and that the LNG would be the proper quality for the New England market.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Naureen S. Malik in New York at nmalik28@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net, Carlos Caminada, Joe Carroll

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