Living the seventh year of sectoral sanctions that target its prospective oil and gas projects, Russia has grown accustomed to living under pressure. Sanctions have made it much more difficult to lend money, more difficult to secure viable partnerships and get access to state-of-the-art technologies. Going beyond the day-to-day challenges, there is one thing that has been missing from Russia’s portfolio – a breakthrough within its import substitution drive. Developing and commissioning its own liquefaction technology might have been just that, a resolute statement that Russian companies can overcome the technological arrears in a sector that had previously been underrepresented or just simply put on the back burner. Yet that is hardly what we see right now. Arctic Cascade was destined to become the jewel in the crown of Yamal LNG. The first patented Russian technology to liquefy natural gas, Arctic Cascade was poised to decrease liquefaction costs by […]