Russian court orders seizure of Linde's liquid helium containers

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court has ordered the seizure of 13 ISO containers for liquid helium owned by Germany's Linde and put them under the control of RusKhimAlyans, a subsidiary of gas giant Gazprom, according to a Russian court ruling.

The Arbitration court of St Petersburg and Leningrad region delivered the verdict as part of legal proceedings against the German industrial gases company Linde and some Western banks launched by RusKhimAlyans, a Russian joint venture company building a gas complex at the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga.

Linde did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The court had previously ordered nearly $500 million of assets belonging to Linde to be frozen at the request of the joint venture.

RusKhimAlyans valued all the containers at no more than 1.3 billion roubles ($14 million).

The company had signed a deal with Linde in 2021 for the construction of the gas plant. Linde halted work on the project in May 2022, having been advised that the export of LNG would breach European Union sanctions.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank last month won an injunction in London stopping RusKhimAlyans from suing the lenders in Russia over the aborted gas project.

($1 = 92.6900 roubles)

(Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Andrew Osborn)