Joe Biden signed a decree providing for economic measures against foreign financial institutions involved in supplying sanctioned military goods to Russia. Banks, pension funds, operators of payment systems, and their “subsidiaries” can fall under these sanctions. The document also introduced restrictions on Russian diamonds.
Meanwhile, the start of liquefied gas supply from the new Russian project, Arctic LNG 2, was postponed after the Russian enterprise Novatek announced force majeure due to the US sanctions.
It is reported that foreign shareholders – French TotalEnergies, Chinese CNPC and CNOOC, and a consortium of Japanese Mitsui and JOGMEC – have frozen their participation in the project. This will prevent Novatek from fulfilling all its contractual obligations but will not stop the supply of gas completely.
The Arctic LNG 2 project is crucial to Russia’s ambitions to increase LNG production by more than 200% by the end of the decade.
Additionally, the Swiss government has decided to join the 12th package of EU sanctions against Russia.