TANKERS HAVE FOUND NEW SPOT TO SECRETLY PUMP RUSSIAN OIL PRODUCTS

Tanks carrying Russian exported oil products have found new spots off the coast of Greece for secret ship-to-ship transfers. This comes after the European country conducted naval exercises in an attempt to block these activities.

The volume of Russian oil product pumping in the Laconian Gulf region (white) and the Aegean Sea (blue) in millions of barrels. Data from Vortexa, source Bloomberg.

Tanks carrying Russian exported oil products have found new spots off the coast of Greece for secret ship-to-ship transfers. This comes after the European country conducted naval exercises in an attempt to block these activities.

According to analytics firm Vortexa, around 1 million barrels of Russian diesel, fuel oil and other petroleum products are pumped from tanker to tanker every month around the Aegean islands of Lesbos and Chios. The area became popular after the Greek Navy conducted exercises in the Laconian Gulf area, which was previously the busiest pumping location in Europe.

The sharp increase in the volume of Russian ship-to-ship transfers of oil and fuel in and around Europe has raised concerns among environmentalists, as the safety of the process and the reliability of insurance for the vessels involved in these operations are in doubt. The practice, sometimes carried out covertly with disabled or tampered with digital beacons, is designed to hide the origin of the oil and thus evade sanctions.

Ship-to-ship transfers still occur near the Gulf of Laconia, but the number of such incidents has decreased significantly since the start of the Greek naval exercises. The exercises have left a narrow area of ​​water untouched, and it is in this area that pumping continues.

Since May, when the Greek fleet began the exercises, pumping has become a regular practice in the Italian port of Augusta. On 14 November, the Greek naval exercises were extended until mid-March.