“Moscow’s capacity to transport oil on old uninsured vessels has increased by 70% since 2023.”, — write: www.epravda.com.ua
Moscow’s capacity to transport oil on old uninsured vessels has increased by 70% since 2023.
About this informs Financial TImes with reference to KSE report.
The volume of Russian oil transported by poorly maintained and uninsured tankers increased from 2.4 million barrels per day in June 2023 to 4.1 million in June 2024.
The trend comes as the US, Canada, Japan and European allies increasingly target global insurers and shipowners in an effort to stifle Moscow’s ability to profit from the war in Ukraine.
They also added companies and individual vessels associated with the Russian shadow fleet to the sanctions list.
Many of these vessels regularly sail in busy European waters, including the Baltic Sea, the Danish Straits and the Strait of Gibraltar, increasing the risk of environmental disasters for the EU and neighboring countries.
KSE proposes to create shadow-free zones in European waters to reduce these risks.
In June 2024, 70% of Russian offshore oil was transported by the shadow fleet, which KSE estimated Russia spent $10 billion on collecting. This included 89% of Russia’s total crude oil supplies, most of which traded above the $60-a-barrel price threshold from mid-2023, and 38% of Russia’s petroleum product exports.
By amassing that fleet, Moscow severed ties with coalition countries with price caps that pressured global insurers to comply with the sanctions regime, reducing Russia’s options to mostly domestic insurers.
This has reportedly raised serious concerns about the quality, reliability and extent of such coverage. The combination of the age of the tankers, which is an average of 18 years, and the lack of adequate insurance makes these vessels extremely dangerous.
There have already been several accidents involving shadow ships linked to Russia. This March, the 15-year-old shadow tanker Andromeda Star collided with another vessel near Denmark. There was no oil spill because it was on its way to Russia, unloaded.
Shadow fleet vessels used to carry oil from other sanctioned sellers have also had engine failures, indicating maintenance problems and explosions. In May 2023, a 27-year-old vessel under the flag of Gabon with a capacity of 700,000 barrels, which was used to transport Iranian oil, suffered a powerful explosion near Indonesia. At that time it was empty.
Several Shadow Fleet vessels have been involved in oil spills, with some fleeing the scene after causing environmental damage. In 2019, the 23-year-old Ceres I, formerly involved in the oil trade from Iran, collided with another tanker near Singapore, turned off its signal and tried to escape before being apprehended by the Malaysian coast guard.
We will remind:
New unknown buyers, suspected of ties to Russia, have started accumulate dozens of vessels capable of transporting liquefied natural gas, indicating that Moscow is expanding its “dark fleet” of tankers for transporting gas.
Russia has already created a shadow fleet to transport its oil around the world, but now appears there is more and more evidence that Moscow has begun to create a fleet for liquefied natural gas as well.