Uninsured Russian Tankers Transporting Oil
TaiwanPlus speaks to energy analyst Petras Katinas, author of a report exposing Russia's fleet of uninsured "shadow tankers" transporting millions of tons of crude oil around the world. Katinas reveals how Russia is circumventing sanctions, who's buying their oil and what risks the practice poses for the environment and economies around the world.
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00:00You mentioned in your report that these Russian shadow tankers are a global issue.
00:06What's the true scale of this problem?
00:08After the full-scale invasion and the UN embargo on Russian crude oil,
00:14Russia had to basically send its all crude oil to Asian countries.
00:2096% of Russian crude oil now it goes to Asia, Asian countries, and mainly to China and India.
00:29Basically, Russia gives them a huge discount.
00:33So I make an assumption that yes, they know that basically they are circumventing sanctions.
00:40Realistically, what can the international community do to police these tankers?
00:45There is a huge need in monitoring, first of all,
00:49because many institutions in the US and the EU do not have enough manpower to monitor.
00:58And the second thing is, of course, enforcement.
01:01Mandating basically proof of adequate PNI insurance and strictly enforcing their requirement
01:08would probably deter shadow tankers operating in sensitive coastal regions and geographical bottlenecks.
01:15So I would say that this could effectively close off the most direct and cost-effective routes
01:21for these vessels making shadow fleet operations economically unviable.
01:27Your report mentions that some of these tankers are in quite bad shape.
01:31If some of them were involved in incidents, what kind of impact might they have on the environment?
01:37And having in mind that Asian countries are the biggest buyers,
01:42it is a huge ecological issue and threat to these countries.
01:48It might affect the tourism sector.
01:52It might affect, of course, fishery, which is very important, I would say, for East Asia.
01:57And, of course, the long-term damage to basically fauna and flora.
02:02So it's not only, I would say, not only oil spill cause,
02:06but as well it's probably, I would say, social cause
02:10that the societies of countries might pay for that in the long term.