Russian movers of sanctioned oil have found a new spot in the Mediterranean to carry out ship-to-ship transfers having been turfed out of Greece last month.
Bloomberg is reporting that a slice of coastline off eastern Morocco near the city of Nador has become a new location to transfer Urals oil from smaller ships to larger tankers for onward shipment.
Since May 1 the Greek navy has been holding exercises in the Laconian gulf in a bid to deter Russian-linked tankers from using that popular site for ship-to-ship transfers.
In the more than two years since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent sanctions, Moscow has had to keep moving its fleet of tankers to different destinations to keep exports flowing.
The grey tanker fleet – as tracked by brokers BRS – has grown in size by 17% this year to number 787 units, equivalent to 8.5% of total tanker capacity. With more large ships classed as grey, the amount of tanker tonnage by dwt stands at a “staggering” 93.7m dwt, BRS stated in a recent tanker report, representing 13.7% of total tanker tonnage.
