The sanctioned Russian tanker Primorye disappeared from radar in the sea off Singapore in early June in order to transfer oil to another ship. This was found out by the Bloomberg news agency.
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Primorye came under US sanctions in October 2023 due to the transportation of raw materials above the price set by Western sanctions. Previously, the ship belonged to Sovcomflot, but by that time the owner had changed to the UAE company Lumber Marine SA. In total, 40 tankers were subject to similar sanctions.
Since then, the Primorye, with a capacity of about a million barrels, has not been loaded for about six months, like other sanctioned tankers. At the same time, at the end of April, as Bloomberg discovered, the ship arrived at the port of Novorossiysk for a shipment of Urals oil.
By June 3, Primorye had made its way to the Singapore Strait. A hundred kilometers east of the coast of Singapore, the crew turned off the radio transmitters. In satellite footage from those days, Bloomberg found the tanker transferring oil to another ship, the Ocean Hermana, whose operator is unknown.
The Ocean Hermana tanker, according to its history of movements, often delivered cargo to China. Bloomberg assumes that the oil from Novorossiysk is also destined for a buyer in China. The Primorye itself (empty, according to its draft) headed for a port in southern China. Ocean Hermana last transmitted its location on June 10 and was standing in the same place in the strait.
A month after Primorye, at the end of May, another sanctioned tanker, Bratsk, was refueled in the port of Novorossiysk. Before the sanctions, the ship, manufactured in China, belonged to Sovcomflot under a different name — NS Burgas. It is now in the Indian Sea, its arrival in the Singapore Strait is expected on June 17.
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A similar method, when traders transfer oil directly into the sea, has been used since 2022 after the introduction of EU sanctions on Russian oil supplies. One of the first such cases was recorded in June 2022 in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal.
Atlantic Council experts warned of the danger of a spill at sea due to the method itself, as well as the fact that old ships are used for shadow transportation (their average age is about 30 years). They also doubted the ability of Russian firms, which began insuring oil supplies after Western companies stopped working, to fulfill their obligations in the event of a spill.