(Bloomberg) -- In the icy waters east of Vladivostok, the oil tankers Kazan, Ligovsky Prospect and Kareliya have been stuck doing nothing ever since they were sanctioned by the US more than a year ago for their roles in transporting Russian oil.
While the 820-foot vessels have been stuck longer than any others tied to Moscow’s petroleum trade, they’re emblematic of the impact that western sanctions — particularly those applied by Washington — are having on the tankers delivering Russian petroleum.
Authorities in the UK have sanctioned nearly twice as many ships as their counterparts across the Atlantic, although their actions have been less effective. The European Union has lagged behind, until now.
On Monday, Brussels slapped its heaviest round of sanctions yet on tankers hauling Russian oil and gas in an effort to curtail the flow of funds to the Kremlin. It added 52 new ships to its blacklist, more than doubling the number that the 27-nation bloc has targeted. Some weren’t petroleum carriers.
The names of the newly sanctioned vessels, 42 of which are oil tankers, were only made public today. More than half of them were already subject to UK measures and at least one had also been named by the US.
Here’s a look at the ships sanctioned by the EU and other regulators before today. The outgoing Biden administration is also considering designating more shadow-fleet ships, Bloomberg reported last week.
Nearly two-thirds of the tankers that had already been sanctioned by Western nations for their involvement in the Russian oil trade remain idle after being added to the lists of banned vessels.
Vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show that 68 out of 106 crude oil tankers that had been blacklisted by the US, the UK, the European Union, or some combination of the three, since October 2023 have not loaded a single cargo since they were named.
The vessels are spread around the world, but several key locations have emerged as gathering points. Most are close to Russian ports.
The biggest concentration is off Russia’s Pacific port of Nakhodka and nearby Vladivostok in Asia. Ten tankers are gathered in two groups. Three have been idle here since March, but others arrived in August.
Nine tankers have anchored off Russia’s Baltic oil terminal at Ust-Luga, close to St. Petersburg. One of them has been there for more than eight months, arriving in early April. Another joined it in May. The most recent arrived on Monday.
Two more sanctioned vessels, the Zaliv Amurskiy and the Nagarjuna, are also off the port, but their names feature on a partial loading program for Ust-Luga, seen by Bloomberg. Both those active vessels are sanctioned by the UK.
Several ships disappeared from digital tracking systems after entering the Black Sea. Three of those passed through the Bosporus in February and March and have not been seen since. It’s unlikely that they would have been able to slip back into the Mediterranean undetected, as vessels are required to activate their automatic informations systems, which send the digital position signals, when passing through the Turkish straits.
Two other groups of sanctioned ships are anchored around the northern end of the Suez Canal and in the Riau archipelago, east of Singapore.
The vessels at these locations are part of the shadow fleet of ships amassed to haul Russian oil, rather than Russia’s own ships. Half of those off Malaysia haven’t been visible on automated tracking systems for at least a month.
While many of the sanctioned ships remain idle, the rate at which others are being put back to works has increased after the first cargoes were successfully delivered using banned vessels earlier this year.
A total of at least 23 crude cargoes were loaded onto sanctioned ships last month, the tracking data show. That was up from 17 in October and six in each of August and September.
In total, 57 crude cargoes have been carried on 38 sanctioned vessels, with five blacklisted ships each making at least three journeys by the end of November.
Most of the vessels that have been put back to work were sanctioned by the UK, either alone or alongside at least one other jurisdiction. In total, 30 of the 73 tankers sanctioned by the UK have carried a cargo since being blacklisted. That compares with five of 39 named by the US and two of 17 listed by the EU.
The Biden administration is weighing new, harsher sanctions against Russia’s oil trade.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.