By Gerasimos Seraphimidis
Behind the confrontation that has erupted around the new European sanctions in the Russian LNG lies a business relationship that George Prokopiou began building more than a decade ago and which is currently facing a completely different geopolitical reality. This is because it has signed two contracts reaching 2033 and 2034 to transport natural gas and They yield more than a third of Dynagas LNG Partners' annual revenue.
The Financial Times' report on Greek reactions to the European Union's new sanctions brought to the fore Dynagas and its significant presence in the transfer of LNG from Yamal, Russian Arctic. The company's response was that the relevant investments and contracts were made long before Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that an exclusion of European shipping companies would not necessarily stop Russian exports, but could simply transfer ships, know-how and activity to operators outside Europe.
The latest financial results of Dynagas LNG Partners reveal, however, the other side of the equation: how important are Yamal's long-term contracts for part of George Prokopios' shipping interests. Of the only six LNG Carriers available to the listed, the two, "Yenisei River" and "Lena River", are employed with long-term charters from Yamal Trade, which extend to 2033 and 2034 respectively. In 2025 these contracts accounted for 36% of the company's total revenue.
Dynagas LNG Partners itself now acknowledges that the loss of revenue from one or both contracts could have a material negative impact on its activity, results and financial situation, and even warns that it could arise, under certain circumstances, even a breach of obligations under its lending contracts.
What Yamal is
Yamal is one of the most ambitious energy ventures developed in Russia in recent decades. It is located in northern Siberia and within the Arctic Circle, in an area where extreme temperatures and the presence of ice make production and especially the transport of natural gas particularly demanding.
At its heart is Yamal LNG, the liquefaction facility powered by the South Tambey deposit and developed with tens of billion dollars invested. The project is under international auspices, as it is controlled by 50.1% by Russian Novatek, but French TotalEnergys are also involved with 20%, Chinese CNPC with 20% and Silk Road Fund with 9.9%.
The three main production lines have a capacity of 16.5 million tonnes LNG per year, while the geographical location of the project allows Russia to feed both the European and Asian markets. In order to do that, however, a substantial new supply chain had to be created. The port of Sabetta was built to constitute the LNG export gate, while the hardest part was its transport through the frozen waters of the Arctic.
Dynagas had moved as early as 2015 to build five Arc7 class LNG carriers, each with a capacity of about 172,000 cubic metres, which were designed specifically for Yamal's needs. These are not conventional LNG carriers, as they have the ability to attempt in extremely difficult Arctic conditions and cross ice thickness up to about 2.1 meters, moving both forward and backward.
This specialization makes them a key part of Yamal's operation, especially in winter months. At the same time, however, it creates a different business risk profile, since these ships are assets designed around very specific operational requirements and therefore do not necessarily have the same ease of repositioning on the world market as a conventional LNG carrier.
According to the Financial Times, Dynagas currently controls about a third of the Arc7 fleet serving Yamal. Since early 2025 her ships have made more than 140 trips associated with the Russian project. The international instrument It values the value of ships at $300 million each. and highlight the difficulties that their use would present in a different trade.
A relationship that started before the war
This is also a key point in Dynagas's response to the debate that has been opened. The company notes that its Yamal agreements were signed in 2015 and 2016, several years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of the current sanction grid. These contracts are very long-term contracts, which is a central feature of Dynagas's strategy in the LNG sector, ensuring predictability of revenue over the greater variability of the spot market.
The importance of Yamal for the interests of the group is also shown by the elements of the listed Dynagas LNG Partners. In the case of Arc4 "Lena River", for example, the agreement with Yamal has an initial duration of 15 years as of 2019 and provides for three successive five-year extensions.
* Republished by Chapter newspaper
