A UK-SANCTIONED, falsely flagged tanker laden with 720,000 barrels of Urals crude sailed through the English Channel over the weekend, reversing from an earlier course that suggested the ship would bypass the chokepoint where there is increased regulatory scrutiny, principal analyst Michelle Wiese Bockmann reported.

The 15-year-old aframax tanker, formerly known as Attica, was one of 30 vessels sanctioned on November 25 by the UK in its fourth tranche of sanctions against Russia’s oil and shipping sector.

Broadcasting via AIS its new name of Yi Meng Shan (IMO: 9436941) since October 27, along with a new flag of Netherlands Antilles, the vessel loaded its cargo at the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga two days before it was sanctioned, data from commodities tracker Vortexa and Lloyd’s List Intelligence shows.

The tanker is one of the 670 tankers that form the so-called dark fleet shipping oil sanctioned by Western regulators and one of the 300-plus ships engaged in Russia trades.

No container rate upside yet from strike prep or tariff front-loading

Some US retailers have accelerated imports to prep for a renewed US port strike and to avoid higher tariffs under a Trump presidency, the National Retail Federation reported on November 8. One month later, there’s no evidence of that cargo pull-forward in spot indices, wrote senior maritime reporter Greg Miller.

The indices have shown a very large jump in Asia-Europe spot rates, a slight downturn in Asia-US east coast rates, and a sizeable decline in Asia-US west coast rates.

Over the past six weeks, the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index for Shanghai to the Mediterranean has increased 47% and Drewry’s World Container Index for Shanghai to Genoa has surged 67%. The daily Xeneta short-term rate index for Asia to the Mediterranean rose 64% between October 28 and Thursday.

At the bottom end of the spectrum, the SCFI Shanghai-US west coast rate assessment is down 31% over the past six weeks, the WCI Shanghai-Los Angeles rate is down 23%, and the Xeneta Asia-US west coast index is down 21%.

Iranian oil keeps flowing ahead of expected return to ‘maximum pressure’

According to preliminary figures from New York-based advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, Tehran exported almost 1.6m barrels per day in November, about its average pace for the year to date, wrote senior maritime reporter Tomer Raanan.

Should Iran maintain that pace in December, it would finish the year at about 10% above the 1.45m bpd it averaged in 2023.

Keeping Iran’s oil flowing around the restrictions is the fleet servicing sanctioned trades, which has swelled to about 470 tankers and liquefied petroleum gas carriers, according to UANI’s latest tally.

Geopolitical risk the biggest threat to shipping, says industry

Geopolitcial risk is the biggest threat to shipping over the next two years, according to the Lloyd’s List Outlook poll, reported Joshua Minchin.

Lloyd’s List has surveyed the industry for the past few weeks to take the temperature on some of the biggest issues facing shipping.

The results were revealed at the Lloyd’s List Outlook Forum at Trinity House, in the shadow of the Tower of London.

Some 47% of respondents said geopolitical risk was the greatest risk to shipping over the next two years, perhaps unsurprisingly, as the sector grapples with a world fracturing into distinct trading blocs.

That figure was surpassed by respondents in Trinity House itself, where nearly 60% of the audience opted for geopolitical risk when polled live.

* Lloyd’s List defines a tanker as part of the dark fleet if it is aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined in US State Department guidance issued in May 2020. The figures exclude tankers tracked to government-controlled shipping entities such as Russia’s Sovcomflot, or Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Co, and those already sanctioned.

Download our explainer on the different risk profiles of the dark fleet here  

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