By Selwyn Parker*
It’s the near-miss that has shocked Brussels into action. Drifting helplessly in the Baltic Sea with 100,000 tonnes of oil in its holds, the Panama-flagged tanker Eventin was a floating environmental time bomb until it was taken in tow in early January by German tugboats in an emergency rescue operation that demonstrates once again the extreme danger of Russia’s enormous shadow fleet. (The Lowy Institute. The Interpreter.)
The rescue coincided with the last days of the Biden administration, when it unveiled the biggest-ever package of sanctions against Putin’s rust buckets and the wider Russian oil and gas industry.
In general, experts on energy politics see this latest onslaught of sanctions as the most effective yet. “The oil trade is the rouble’s last life raft and the Kremlin does not have a quick fix to the punctures made by these new US sanctions,” noted the Atlantic Council’s Olga Khakova, the organisation’s deputy director for energy security. Others describe the package as a “body blow” and “a series of measures that will bite”. Importantly, it follows the cancellation at the start of the new year of the Ukraine gas transit arrangements. According to Khakova, that amounts to a $6 billion loss in annual revenues for Russia. That, in turn, follows collapsing revenues from reduced flows as Europe frantically sought alternative gas supplies following the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s tanker fleet is much bigger than was thought and in spite of the sanctions this ageing armada numbers about 600 vessels, according to the estimates.
In detail, the chief watchdog of the shadow fleet, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), added 183 vessels including 155 tankers to the sanctioned list while also greatly widening the net. OFAC named state-owned energy giants Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas as well as, for the first time, their chief executives among a dozen other “specially designated individuals”. Nothing if not comprehensive, the list also names nearly 100 suppliers, most of them in Russia but others in the UAE, Turkey, Malaysia and even Britain. These entities face “grave risks” in continuing to work with Russia’s military-industrial complex, warned OFAC.
Naturally, most of the interest is in the “dirty fleet” and OFAC has identified a financial channel between China and Russia that slips through cross-border payments for “sensitive goods” – mainly oil – via a state-owned bank based in the Kyrgyz Republic. Unfortunately, the arrangement has been highly successful because the size of Putin’s tanker fleet is much bigger than was thought. In spite of the sanctions, this ageing armada numbers about 600 vessels, according to the estimates.
The fleet is an economic lifeline for Russia. According to calculations by shipbroker Braemar, in 2024 the newly designated 155 tankers alone carried about 45 per cent by volume of Russia’s crude exports.
So far, the United States and, increasingly, the United Kingdom, have been at the forefront of the pursuit of the shadow fleet, but the rescue of the Eventin and the deliberate cutting of data cables and pipelines by anchor-dragging vessels has aroused the EU. Most recently, the Estlink cable connecting Estonia to Finland was severed, almost certainly by the Cook Islands-registered oil tanker Eagle S that Finland promptly arrested.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock fired off a broadside in recent days about Putin “ruthlessly deploying a fleet of rusty tankers”. And in mid-January, NATO launched “Baltic Sentry” – a naval protection fleet formed of frigates, submarines, maritime patrol aircraft and drones that will, according to a statement, tackle the “reckless activities of vessels serving Russian cargo flow”.
Taiwan is also following suit after a Chinese-linked cargo vessel damaged an undersea communication cable to the north of the island in early January.
Clearly, NATO has had enough. As its Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned: “Ship captains must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, impounding, and arrest.”
*Selwyn Parker is an author and journalist specialising in Asia-Pacific, European and Latin American issues.
