French TotalEnergies has completed the transfer of a 10% stake in the Arctic LNG 2 project to the Russian company Nordline, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné announced during an investor conference call. He declared this chapter closed for the company and noted that the transfer process would be completed shortly.
Negotiations for the stake transfer were initiated by Novatek. In June 2026, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a special decree authorizing the deal. According to Pouyanné, the sale of shares serves the interests of both parties – TotalEnergies and Novatek. Partners and creditors have been notified of the deal.
TotalEnergies was one of the foreign participants in Arctic LNG 2, alongside Chinese CNPC and CNOOC (10% each) and the Japanese consortium Japan Arctic LNG (10%). Earlier, in 2022, the company had already written off $4.1 billion in Russian assets, mainly related to this project.
Arctic LNG 2 is Novatek's second large-scale liquefied natural gas project after Yamal LNG. In November 2023, the US Treasury Department included the project in its sanctions list, which created problems with logistics, financing, and access to technology. Despite this, the project continues to export individual LNG cargoes, mainly to China at discounted prices.
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