THERE is a school of thought that suggests however low a European price cap gets, or however many faked insurance certificates are demanded from passing shadow fleet tankers, that EU sanctions don’t achieve much.

That’s not true. They do make Russian trade more costly and complicated for everyone involved and they make a lot of well-meaning insurance and shipping executives very angry on a regular basis. But do they stem the flow of oil ending up in Chinese or Indian refineries? Well, probably not.

US sanctions have more teeth and if Donald Trump’s 50-day deadline, which has now been truncated to nine days, results in a Russian crackdown, then the market should certainly brace for impact. But even then, a full-frontal economic measure would likely just force more elaborate supply chain adaptations rather than halting flows.

Yes, the US can strong-arm Baghdad into offering up some shadow fleet offenders, and it can grudgingly force Kuala Lumpur into saying it will clamp down on illicit ship-to-ship transfers. But stopping China from importing the oil its wants from where it wants? Unlikely.

Iranian crude shipments to China jumped 15% in the first half of 2025 despite the apparent exertion of ‘maximum pressure’.

China’s maritime stakeholders are sufficiently pragmatic and have a long-enough view of risk to know that staying compliant and profitable requires pragmatism. But they are also savvy enough to know that where there is demand, there will be supply, and the rest is just a question of logistics and ensuring the right players carry the right risk.

Certainly, there is increasing velocity and complexity in subterfuge sanctions operations, but suitably large profits can inspire elegant solutions to seemingly complicated problems.

We hear Chinese ports now schedule sanctioned tanker arrivals for cloudy days to avoid satellite detection — turning ‘dark calls’ into ‘cloudy calls’.

If the political climate shifts and the US decides that China’s Iranian and Russian oil habit is the issue that triggers another tariff escalation, then perhaps things do change materially. But until that happens the forecasts suggests continued movement of sanctioned oil with occasional outbreaks of ineffective sanctions enforcement.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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