Russia’s Shadow Tankers Threaten Baltic Environmental Catastrophe

The number of Russian oil tankers passing Germany’s Baltic coast is now 70% higher than before the Ukraine war, the environmental group found in a September 24 report. What’s more, the tankers are nearly twice as old as the tankers sailing this route before the war, and they’re in poor repair.

“Can’t Greenpeace do anything about it?” a reporter asked me during an interview about the shadow fleet in late 2022. I admit I hadn’t considered the possibility, but the question made me realize that environmental groups should indeed be taking on the shadow fleet.

They should because this collection of aging vessels carrying enormous amounts of sanctioned Russian crude to recipients such as India and China poses a serious and immediate risk to the waters they traverse. They not only lack proper insurance but are also old and poorly maintained. Indeed, many shadow vessels were destined for the junkyard until secretive entities saw the opportunity to make money and snapped them up. And these days, the export of oil — especially above the price cap set by Western nations — is how Russia makes money to fund its war machine.

That means that a whole lot of old, poorly maintained tankers carrying Russian oil sail through the Baltic Sea towards the Danish Straits and on to their eventual destinations. These vessels pose a considerable risk to the marine environment. In April, Greenpeace activists sailed up to shadow vessels performing dangerous ship-to-ship oil transfers off the coast of Gotland and, in true Greenpeace style, painted slogans on them. “Oil fuels war” and “People want peace,” the messages said.

The vessels are old, very old. Greenpeace reports that their average age is now 16.6 years, up from 8.9 years before the war. Two thirds lack protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance, which covers serious contingencies. That’s because the world’s P&I insurers are based in Western countries and adhere to Western sanctions, shadow vessels resort to alternative coverage, which often turns out to be no coverage at all. All these factors suggest that most of the tankers transporting Russian oil through German waters belong to the so-called shadow fleet of vessels that operate on the margins of global shipping.

Even more troublingly, the route taken by these rusting relics includes bird sanctuaries and nature reserves like the Fehmarn Belt and the Kadet Trench. On August 22, for example, two of the three tankers sailing along the German coast lacked P&I insurance. They were 17, 18, and 20 years old, respectively. One of them, the Chilli, has repeatedly been faulted in port inspections. Last July, Indian port inspectors noted corrosion on the vessel’s hull. In March, inspectors in the Indian port of Sikka found the Chilli to have no fewer than six faults and detained her.

Innovative cooperation, though, is one step. Greenpeace won’t be able to tackle the shadow fleet alone, just like the US government can’t. But for once, Western governments and environmental groups are in complete unity, or ought to be. That’s a good start.