Russia’s Gazprom shipped a cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its small-scale Portovaya LNG plant on the Baltic Sea to Spain for the first time, LSEG data showed on Monday.

LNG, unlike some other Russian hydrocarbons, such as crude oil, has not been under the Western sanctions.

The tanker, the Cool Rover, which loaded LNG ship-to-ship from the floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), the Marshal Vasilevskiy, discharged in the Spanish port of Huelva at the Enagas LNG terminal, the data showed.

Gazprom and Portovaya LNG did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

State-controlled Gazprom has practically lost the European pipeline gas export market, once the main source of foreign currency revenues for Moscow.

Russia supplied a total of around 63.8 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Europe by various routes via pipelines in 2022, according to Gazprom data and Reuters calculations. The volumes plummeted further, by 55.6%, to 28.3 bcm last year.

The Portovaya LNG plant with a capacity of 1.5 million metric tons per year was launched in September 2022.

Most LNG cargoes from the plant have been sent to Turkey or Greece, while three were shipped to China.

Source: Reuters reported by Reuters and edited by Louise Heavens