European Union member states imported between 9.89 and 9.97 million metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas from Russia’s Yamal facility in the first six months of 2026, a volume that exceeds any previous half-year period and represents a rise of 16 to 18 percent on the same stretch of 2025. The shipments, recorded by analytics firm Kpler and reported by the Financial Times and Reuters, were valued at approximately €6 billion by the German NGO Urgewald. France, Belgium and Spain accounted for the bulk of deliveries, taking 3.6, 2.9 and 2.7 million tonnes respectively, while more than 97 percent of all Yamal cargoes landed at EU ports.

The surge is driven by the approaching deadline of the bloc’s phased embargo on Russian gas. Since April 2026, spot and short-term LNG purchases have been prohibited; long-term contracts remain permitted only until 1 January 2027. A separate ban on transshipping Russian LNG through EU terminals, introduced in 2025, has also trapped volumes that were previously re-exported to Asia, swelling European inventories. The EU’s energy regulator ACER noted that Russian pipeline gas imports rose 7 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2026, as companies similarly sought to maximise deliveries before the September 2027 cut-off for pipe flows.

Yamal LNG, majority-owned by Russia’s Novatek with TotalEnergies, CNPC and the Silk Road Fund as minority partners, is the country’s largest liquefaction plant. Its operations depend on a small fleet of Arc7 ice-class tankers and on European shipyards for maintenance. While European purchases hit records, shipments to Asia collapsed by 74 percent to just over 510,000 tonnes, partly because shipping and insurance firms fear falling foul of EU sanctions. TotalEnergies has signalled it may be forced to halt exports from the project entirely once the long-term ban takes effect.

The next factual milestone is 1 January 2027, when the EU’s prohibition on long-term Russian LNG imports enters into force. The central question is whether Novatek can redirect the roughly 17 million tonnes of annual Yamal output to Asian markets, given the logistical constraints of the Northern Sea Route and the reluctance of non-European service providers to handle sanctioned cargoes.