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Baltic countries to check dark fleet insurance

Vessels suspected to be part of Russia’s dark fleet will be asked for proof of insurance when they pass through the English Channel, the Danish Straits and the Gulf of Finland

The Nordic-Baltic 8 countries plus Poland, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK have agreed to take further steps to “disrupt and deter Russia’s shadow fleet” in an announcement made in Tallinn

DARK fleet* tankers will be asked for proof of insurance if they pass through the waters of several European nations.

The Nordic-Baltic 8 countries (Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark) as well as the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the UK, said they would take “coordinated steps to disrupt and deter Russia’s shadow fleet”.

Suspected dark fleet vessels will be asked to provide proof of insurance if they pass through their waters, which include some crucial shipping lanes.

 

 

 

The announcement follows the UK’s lead in October 2024, and now means that dark fleet tankers transiting the Gulf of Finland, Danish Straits of the Great Belt and the English Channel could have their insurance checked.

Since the UK began challenging tankers deployed in Russian trades, the foreign office said 43 vessels with “dubious insurance” were asked to supply their details as they passed through UK waters, Lloyd’s List reported.

Panama-flagged, 106,074 dwt crude tanker Ksena (IMO: 9232888) ignored UK challenges on November 12, the foreign office said. It was then sanctioned on November 25.

In a joint statement, the 12 countries said the “information collected by the participating states, including relating to those vessels that choose not to respond to requests, will be assessed and acted upon together with our international partners.

“Those shadow fleet vessels and their enablers should be in no doubt: we are determined to hold them to account — including through sanctions-related action — for the risks they pose and the support they are providing to Russia’s war against Ukraine.”

Questions have been raised about the realistic threat this policy carries, but Reed Smith partner Alexander Brandt said if he were a dark fleet owner, the announcement from the 12 countries would make him “uneasy”.

“I think I'd be looking at this and being realistic, that if I was transiting through EU territorial waters or UK territorial waters and straits, then I'm exposing myself to greater scrutiny and indeed possible specific action taken against my vessel.”

Brandt said the UK had been pleased with itself about the way its programme of challenging dark fleet tankers over insurance details had gone.

“They think it has struck a balance between preserving Unclos, which we've got to be got to be very careful about actually tackling with vessels using the rights of straits passage or transit passage,” he said.

“But on the other hand, obviously it does give them intelligence on dark fleet vessels that may feed into designation criteria. There's also a declaration of intent, and so my understanding is that there's quite a sort of clever balancing exercise.”

A balance had to be found between policies that that that had visible impact, and keeping supply chains open, he added.

“I think that's what they're doing here, and I think it could work and have some effect,” Brandt said

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the announcement and thanked the leaders of the 12 countries for their “principled stance”.

“Aside from generating enormous profits for Russia’s war machine and funding war crimes against Ukrainians, these ageing oil tankers pose a serious environmental threat to the Baltic and Northern Seas’ coastal states,” he said via social media platform X.

Concerns about a serious oil spill have been raised by multiple European nations, including Sweden and Finland. The Swedish foreign minister said Russia “doesn’t care” about oil spills in April 2024.

The Finnish Shipowners’ Association’s head of maritime policy and safety, Carolus Ramsay, said Finland had been warning of a spill for decades, but now “many people are secretly thinking when the accident will happen, because we have all the ingredients in the soup ready”.

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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