A fleet of supersized Chinese ships, owned by an anonymous entity, are reportedly going “dark” by disabling their tracking signals to transfer Russian oil in the mid-Atlantic. Analysts have warned that this anonymous entity, based in the Chinese port city of Dalian, has bought up a series of super-sized VLCC carriers in a dangerous bid to sell more of Putin’s crude. oil- East.
The Dalian figure has reportedly created a “transfer hub” in international waters about 860 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal, to ship it back to eastern destinations such as China.
According to a report by the maritime intelligence firm Lloyd’s List, the anonymous entity has bought at least five “older” tankers in the past three months, which are now used to secretly buy crude oil.
They believe these ships are buying cargoes of Russian oil that are loaded into the Baltic and Black Sea ports and then sold eastwards, the Telegraph reports.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China has become a major importer of Russian oil, especially as Western countries gradually impose tougher sanctions on Putin.
China’s demand for Russian energy products has increased in recent months, reaching an all-time high for crude oil in May, pushing purchases to $7.47 billion (£6 billion), which is about $1 billion (£800 million) more than in April and double the amount a year ago.
The surge in imports means Russia has now overtaken Saudi Arabia as China’s largest source of crude oil, according to Chinese customs data released Friday.
A major reason for this increase in sales is the fact that Russian ural oil has fallen in value since the sanctions were imposed, while the price of Brent crude has risen.
The analysts found that ships carrying urals mixture were often chartered by companies such as Russian state gas giant Gazprom.
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The ships would avoid being tracked by turning off their Automatic Identification System’s signal, in a process known as “darkening.”
Ship-to-ship transfers are an often dangerous procedure that countries and companies use to conceal the nature and destination of their cargoes, in particular to avoid sanctions.
Analyst Michell Wiese Bockmann told the Telegraph: “Ship-to-ship transfers are now regularly used for crude oil originating in Russia as sanctions and self-sanction recalibrate oil trade and divert oil from Europe to Asia.”
However, they have not suggested that sanctions have been violated by these transfers
Alex Glykas of the shipping advisory group Dynamarine noted that ship-to-ship transfers are often a dangerous process and there is no precedent for their implementation in the mid-Atlantic.
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