Sam Chambers continues to provide updates on actions related to sanctions due to the Ukraine War.
It’s important to close up loopholes in the sanctions, and one of them is ship-to-ship transfers of Russian oil that avoid visibility through AIS. Some of these transfers are doubtless of oil sold for more than the mandated price cap. It’s a tactic often used by the ‘dark fleet’ which is operating below the radar of recognized and reputable insurance and ship conformance guidelines.
Much has been written about the shadow fleet of tankers. The EU rules will help with enforcement.
While a lot of oil can still be shipped outside these rules, the opprobrium of not being able to land in the EU will force tanker owners and operators to consider more closely how much they want to be outside the ring of sanction-following carriers.
The article states that most of the oil is going to India and China. Those are big economies, and probably won’t change their buying behavior much. But they will not be able to escape knowing when their firms are doing it, and so will the rest of the world.
It’s interesting that the ship-to-ship transfers are occurring off Spain near the Canary Islands, headed mostly to China, and off Greece near Kalamata, headed mostly for India.
It’s unrealistic to expect either flag states or these countries to do anything about it. Both are EU members however, and not allowing the ships to dock in the countries may help out. We’ll see if Spain and Greece follow through on enforcement.
Sam Chambers June 29, 2023
Supply Chain and Logistics 