The former chief executive of Polar Train LNG, Joel Riddle, has told the Financial Times that he and other US executives quit the $25 billion Alaska gas venture over claims that Russia's Novatek secretly financed and controlled the project without Washington's approval. $25 billion is yaani 2,500 crore dollars.

Source: Financial Times via BizToc

Nearly the entire executive team resigned in September, according to a summary of the FT reporting, alleging that Novatek — Russia's largest liquefied natural gas producer, which is under US sanctions — financed and directed the Alaska export project before official US Treasury approval. Senior Novatek executives were alleged to have been involved in the financing, based on messages and legal analysis cited in the reporting. These are allegations reported by the FT; no regulator finding was reported in the accounts cited here.

Source: TradersUnion summary of FT reporting

Separately, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing interviews and documents, that a Russian energy giant secretly funded a US firm tied to an Alaska gas project, and that the arrangement has surfaced in US gas talks with the Kremlin aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

Source: The New York Times via News24 summary

The two reports put a strategic North Slope LNG project — in a state whose Arctic gas Washington presents as an American energy asset — inside both a sanctions question and the diplomacy over Ukraine. If a sanctioned Russian company controlled a US export venture without approval, regulators would have to decide whether sanctions were breached; that decision has not been reported.

Polar Train LNG and Novatek had not announced any agreement about the claims in the reports cited here, and the executives' account remains an allegation to be tested by regulators and documents, not a settled finding.