The European Union has agreed on the fifteenth package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The 27 will blacklist dozens of oil and gas tankers helping Moscow to earn billions from the illicit sale of fossil fuels. The agreement actually shows that the sanctions on Russian oil and gas adopted to date have not been sufficiently effective in practice and they have not stopped the war machine with which Putin occupies part of Ukraine.
In late 2022, an international coalition made up of G7 countries, the EU and Australia imposed a cap on the sale of Russian crude oil in an effort to limit Moscow’s revenues. The new sanctions aim to prevent another 52 oil tankers from accessing EU ports, bringing the total to 79. in an attempt to stop the so-called Russian “shadow fleet”a group of vessels that trade sanctioned fuel.
It is estimated that this fleet is made up of more than 600 shipswhose ownership is often hidden by shell companies. Furthermore, to circumvent the boycott in these two long years, Moscow has relabeled their crude oil to mask its origin.
According to the think tank Energy and Clean Air Research Center (CREA), around 80% of the crude oil transported by sea through Moscow was moved through ships outside of control. In fact, the total number of “ghost” ships has more than tripled since 2022. That translates into millions and millions of rubles fueling Putin’s war.
The ban on Russian oil imports imposed by the EU and the G7 has cost Russia a loss of income from crude oil exports estimated at 4,000 million euros, which represents a decrease in export income of 10% in the second year of sanctions. Still the CREA calculates that this shadow fleet has transported crude oil worth 80,000 million euros from the end of 2022 until September of this 2024.
November data shows that Russia’s monthly income per Fossil fuel exports fell 2%up to 611 million euros per day. Last month, Russian monthly income from gas exports via gas pipeline grew by 23% month-on-month, up to 78 million euros per day, always according to CREA data.
Europe and Russian gas
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According to CREA, in November, the five largest importing countries of Russian fossil fuels in the EU paid Russia 1.1 billion euros for their imports. Slovakia was the largest importer within the EU, followed by France, Hungary and Austria. Spain appears as the fifth importer, with 176 million euros of Russian LNG. The EU has granted an exemption to Russian crude oil imported via the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Russian pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) also remain unauthorized.
Dirty, old and dangerous boats
The Russian shadow fleet is made up of hundreds of old and poorly maintained ships, sailing defying Western sanctions and damaging the environment (leaving a mark). Brussels says that these ships “contribute to the Russian war machine” and according to the Swedish Foreign Minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, they pose a “significant danger” to the marine environment.
A joint investigation of the web Political and the nonprofit journalism group SourceMaterial has discovered at least nine cases of covert ships of the shadow fleet leaving spills in seas around the world since 2021. They have done this using satellite images from the NGO SkyTruth which have been cross-referenced with maritime transport data from the market analysis firm Lloyd’s List and raw materials platform Kpler.
An example of this hidden fleet mobilized by the Kremlin is the Innova, an oil tanker the size of the Eiffel Tower that last March was detected by the British coast guard about 100 kilometers off the Scottish coast. In reality, what they saw was a spot that extended 23 kilometers into the North Atlantic.
According to an internal analysis carried out by the coast guard’s satellite services, the origin of that slick was the Innova, which at that time was carrying a million barrels of sanctioned oil from Russia on its way to a refinery in India. But, account Politicalnothing happened. The British barely investigated the matter and the ship continued doing its thing, that is, easily bypassing Western restrictions and selling Russian crude oil.
London sanctions 18 oil tankers
However, in October, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that “the UK is leading the charge against Putin’s desperate and dangerous attempts to hold on to its energy revenues, with his shadow fleet endangering Britain’s coasts.” all of Europe and the world”. He said it because it was at that moment when London expanded its sanctions on the Russian “shadow fleet”with the latest package targeting 18 oil tankers, three LNG carriers, the Rusgazdobycha gas company and a floating storage and regasification unit.
“UK leads charge against Putin’s desperate attempt to hold on to energy revenues with his shadow fleet”
According to British authorities, the sanctioned vessels helped Russia to earn $4.9 billion from the sale of crude oil in 2023. The measures came on top of growing regulatory restrictions imposed on ships carrying Russian oil sold above a maximum price of $60 a barrel. “I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, closing the net around Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal,” Lammy said.
In the shadows and throughout the seas of the world
The monitoring carried out by Political and SourceMaterial has identified spills from the Russian ghost fleet everywhere, from Thailand to Vietnam, Italy and Mexico. Tankers have also traversed busy shipping corridors, such as the Red Sea and the Panama Canal. Are Unreliable vessels, almost unregulated and often uninsured.
“They are a ticking bomb… their impact is enormous for the coastal states that have to bear the cost of cleaning this up.”
In reality, these “pirate” ships were not born due to European sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine; They already existed before, but the environmental problem they pose has worsened with the war. The journalistic investigation showed that more and more oil tankers are transporting illicit goods around the world. The possibility of a leak or spill is enormous and in the event of a disaster there is no insurance or government to hold accountable.
“They are a ticking bomb,” says Isaac Levi, head of Europe-Russia and shadow fleet expert at CREA. “Beyond the environmental damage, some of which will be irreversible, it is a huge impact for coastal states that have to bear the cost of cleaning this up,” explains this expert.
Putin continues to cash in on his oil and finance his costly war in Ukraine with that money. In 2021, Russia was the second largest producer of crude oil, in millions of barrels per day, with 10,112. The first was the United States, with 11,254, and Saudi Arabia was third, with 9,313. As Senator John McCain said, Russia is “a gas station disguised as a country.”
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