Sanctions created ‘deadlock’ for Yamal LNG, says Total Novatek plans new projects to challenge Qatar for scale Building the $27 billion Yamal liquefied natural gas project meant shipping more than 5 million tons of materials to construct a forest of concrete and steel 600 kilometers north of the Arctic circle, where temperatures can drop to -50 degrees celsius and the sun disappears for two months straight. Yet those challenges weren’t as tough as the U.S. sanctions imposed in 2014, forcing a complete refinancing just as construction was about to start. Jacques de Boisseson, head of the Moscow office of French energy giant Total SA, which has a 20 percent stake in Yamal LNG, said there were “various moments” when he thought the project may never happen. “We were too much advanced to stop. We were in a deadlock: we had to go ahead and we didn’t know how,” de […]