Petroleum, the (ghost) fleet of the Russians to circumvent the European sanctions – Corriere.it

A complex (and secret) network of ships, shipowners, ports and safe passages dominated by countries still willing to negotiate with Russia. An opaque network made up of intermediaries, of hidden loads with no coverage against environmental damage, phantom policies, transshipments of crude oil in the middle of the oceans from one ship to another. A network made up of oil tankers flying flags of convenience, with triangulations in Europe between Cyprus and Malta. A series of techniques to circumvent the European ban on Russian oil: for the raw product it starts in December, for that refined as petrol and diesel, from February. Along the lines of what has already happened with Iran and Venezuela: this time there is half of Moscow, the second largest producer of crude oil in the world, and therefore it means the end of the market for this commodity as we have seen it so far and the beginning of a new era.

Given the long-haul routes, the latest loads are moving now. Since December, European shipowners have lost the possibility of covering the insurance risk in any form and even traders on the values ​​of the cargo lose it, explains the owner Paolo d’Amico, executive president of d’Amico shipping. So there is a global repositioning, a parallel market on oil, which has never been seen in history. There are unknown characters who are buying often old ships to start it. They are composing a dark fleet, a fleet that already exists for Iranian and Venezuelan raw, a fleet that will grow in the coming months while Russia will still lose sales. This will inevitably lead to additional logistics costs and on the other hand will also result in a large discount on the price. With the corollary of a possible downward competition on prices between Russian and Iranian oil, the appetite of Indian and Chinese buyers, adds d’Amico. The shipowner reports that on refined products, such as diesel, there is an agreement between Brazil and Russia for the sale at a preferential price, as recently announced by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. Another geopolitical element that is linked to the cut in crude oil production in the OPEC + countries that caused Washington to hoist.

If you look at how many ships have been sold in the last six months to unknown buyers, very clear that a fleet has been created to transport them, recently told a Bloomberg Christian Ingerslev, chief executive of Maersk Tankers, which operates a fleet of 170 vessels, none of which serve Russia. Between now and December 5 – when the EU will ban imports of Russian crude oil and stop supplying materials, financing and insurance coverage for the related traffic – what will happen on this market given that ships are already starting to run short? Shipping agent Braemar estimates that in order to transport four million barrels a day of Russian exports to the Far East, many of the ships bought by who knows who will need to be added to the 240 tankers already carrying Iranian and Venezuelan crude.

There has been a sharp increase in the oil tanker trade from the war in Ukraine. This trend is accelerating ahead of the December 5 deadline for entities based in Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Cyprus, adds Anoop Singh, head of Braemar’s research and exploration department. In addition to this, there is a surge in ship-to-ship transfers, the so-called ship to ship: cargoes are transferred from one tanker to another in the middle of the sea. Oil that leaves from smaller Russian ships, also due to the fact that the Russian ports mainly have depths that do not allow a large draft. Thus it happens that several tankers transfer the product to larger vessels flying European flags or those of countries not sanctioned by Brussels.