With a soon-to-be planned “shadow fleet” of old oil tankers, Russia appears to be trying to evade new sanctions imposed by the West. However, this can have enormous consequences for the environment, warns energy expert Adnan Vatansever. The ships are probably so outdated that the risk of accidents should be correspondingly high.
“The risk of a tanker accident is greater than it has been for a long time,” Vatansever told Der Spiegel. Russia probably bought about 100 decommissioned ships from sanctioned oil states like Venezuela or Iran. “Most of these ships are quite old,” Vatansever said. The risk of accidents is high.
Fleet for transport probably still too small
“I don’t know what state the ships from, for example, Iran and Venezuela are in – countries whose economies have suffered for years from Western sanctions,” the expert added. He also doubts whether Russian ship insurers will closely monitor the situation. The fleet appears not to be large enough to respond adequately to the sanctions.
Vatansever cites insiders who assume a total of 240 tankers to handle Russian exports of crude oil, gasoline or diesel. In addition, the logistics immediately become more difficult if you try to transport the oil to Asian countries.
Price cap makes doing business in Russia more difficult
Against the background of Russia’s offensive war against Ukraine, an EU import embargo came into force on oil transported by ship on Monday. To prevent the sanctions from being circumvented, the EU states and other industrialized countries such as the US, Japan and Australia have also agreed on a price cap for the tanker transport of Russian oil.
The price cap prohibits any company based in the participating states from offering services related to the shipment of Russian oil if it is trading at a price above US$60 (€57) per barrel. The measure is based on the great global market power of companies from industrialized countries in maritime transport.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
