US sanctions against Russian tankers are weakening: oil exports are rising and more and more vessels are leaving ports – Bloomberg

Crude oil flows from all Russian ports surged by approximately 300,000 barrels per day in the four weeks leading up to March 9. This is the largest increase since January 2023. Reports UNN citing Bloomberg.

US sanctions on the Russian tanker fleet show signs of wavering. Some tankers from the blacklist have loaded and departed from Russian ports for the first time in more than a year.

Oil flows from all Russian ports surged by approximately 300,000 barrels per day in the four weeks leading up to March 9, marking the largest increase since January 2023.

Currently, Russia has accumulated a fleet of tankers owned by obscure and often changing organizations that are beyond the reach of Western governments and do not cooperate with Western companies.

Reference

The sanctions regime was tightened in January when President Joe Biden’s administration announced a series of new restrictions, including blacklisting an additional 161 vessels.

The corresponding move had a restraining effect on oil flows.

Before Biden’s sanctions package was adopted on January 10, India was the destination for about 60% of Russian Arctic oil exports, amounting to about 64 million barrels last year. In the first nine months of 2024, about 14 million barrels of oil from the ‘Sokol’ field of the ‘Sakhalin-1’ project were also delivered to India, accounting for nearly 30% of the total volume of supplies during this period.

An interesting detail:

Shipments of Russian Arctic oil loaded after January 10 were not delivered to India. This is despite the fact that ports on India’s west coast were initially designated as destination points in the delivery data.

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Instead of being delivered, some shipments were secretly transshipped onto other vessels off the coast of Oman. Those ships that have been identified appear to be heading to China. Other shipments are heading directly to China.

Almost all of the 15 million barrels loaded from the Arctic since the sanctions were imposed on January 10 seem to be embarking on much longer voyages than initially planned, leaving oil at sea for months.

Only eight of the 22 shipments of Sakhalin oil loaded after the last ban were delivered to the Pacific Ocean. Three of them were unloaded into storage tanks at the Yangshan port near Shanghai, as tracking data shows. This facility is not linked to any of China’s refineries, and this move may simply be made to conceal the true origin of the cargo.

Shuttle tankers continue to transship ‘Sokol’ cargoes onto other vessels in Nakhodka Bay, with tracking data and satellite images indicating that at least three such transshipments occurred this month.

After they were transshipped, Pacific cargoes are not easy to unload, the material notes. The relevant difficulties for Russia in unloading may decrease if US President Donald Trump decides to lift the measures of his predecessor.

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