More Russian tankers going dark
Russian tankers carrying oil chemicals and oil products are increasingly concealing their movements, a development that some maritime experts warn could signal attempts to evade unprecedented sanctions prompted by the invasion of Ukraine.
In the week that ended Friday, there were at least 33 occurrences of so-called dark activity — operating while onboard systems to transmit their locations are turned off — by Russian tankers, said Windward, an Israeli consultancy that specializes in maritime risk using artificial intelligence and satellite imagery. That’s more than double the weekly average of 14 in the past year.
The dark operations occurred mainly in or around Russia’s exclusive economic zone, according to Windward, which conducted the research at Bloomberg’s request. The ships engaging in dark activity include vessels connected to big corporations and multinational shipping firms, as well as small businesses, according to Windward.
Commercial vessels are required by international maritime law to have their automatic identification system, or AIS, turned on while at sea. Disabling or manipulating a ship’s identification system is at the top of deceptive shipping practices cited by the U.S. Treasury Department in an advisory in May to curb illicit shipping and sanctions evasions.
“There’s no reason why they should have their AIS turned off,” said Gur Sender, Windward’s program manager who specializes in compliance and risk issues. “Investigating if a vessel is engaged in deceptive shipping practices related to specific regimes is crucial to protect your business from dealing with sanctioned entities.”
Since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S., U.K. and other allies have ramped up sanctions against the Kremlin. U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order on March 8 banning imports of Russian oil and gas, while on the same day, the U.K. said it will phase out oil imports by the end of the year. Both countries, along with Canada, have also barred Russian ships from accessing their ports.
As more countries and businesses shun commerce with Russia, the country’s fleet will be under pressure to conduct dark activity and even engage in illicit shipping to stay afloat, said Ian Ralby, chief executive of I.R. Consilium, a maritime law and security consulting firm that works with governments.
“Russia has quickly become a pariah state so they are obscuring some of their activities because a lot of people on both ends of a transit don’t want any association to Russia,” said Ralby. “Anywhere that Russia appears in the overall management or operation and ownership of the vessel, there are concerns about dark activity right now. Almost anything that they are going to be doing is gaining scrutiny and legal concerns because of all the various sanctions.”
If the isolation of Russian ships and crew continue, they will have little choice but to take offers that are given to them, making them susceptible to “all sorts of criminal and nefarious manipulation,” said Ralby. “We may see a parallel global market emerge where there is internal trading among all these sanctioned states and their enablers,” he said.