Photo by Natalya Letunova on Unsplash

The evolution of Russia’s 250 strong shadow oil tanker fleet

The ever changing state of the Russian oil market

I have been paying attention to the rather novel ways Russia has been trying to avoid scrutiny, sanctions and price caps.

We can see this in three distinct phases.

Let’s begin.

Phase 1

At the beginning of the war, oil and gas was not subject to sanctions and with prices north of $100 a barrel, Russia was being enriched. I will say this now and repeat it later, 45% of Russia’s budget is oil and gas revenue. It’s a big deal.

While there was discussions in Europe about gas dependency and Russia talking about payment in Roubles etc, oil was untouched by government action and sanctions.

Things began to change organically. First, several unions in Europe, the UK and Canada refused to unload Russian vessels. Indeed, one Russian tanker had to sail all the way back from Canada after being refused.

I have some contacts within Sovcomflot, the Russian state controlled oil tanker company. First, they were delisted from the London Stock exchange, then GPS and navigation system providers stopped supplying them with mapping software and real time data. Compounding this, insurance companies refused…