Russian Tanker Makes Secret Cargo Switch to Evade Sanctions

The first Russian oil tanker attempting to deliver crude while under US sanctions made a secret STS transfer, a sign of the measures the Kremlin is taking to undermine the sanctions regime, Bloomberg said.

• The SCF Primorye was sanctioned by the US Treasury in October and hadn’t loaded oil again in six months.
• The tanker since loaded a Urals cargo from the port of Novorossiysk in late April, transporting it 7.5k miles to 70 miles east of Singapore.
• The tanker then vanished from automatic identification systems. However, satellite imagery shows that the ship moved its cargo onto another vessel, the Ocean Hermana on June 3.
• This transfer would, in theory, help the buyer to distance themselves from the sanctioned vessel.
• The Ocean Hermana is owned by an Indian registered company and has been used to shuttle cargoes from the Malacca Strait to ports in China.
• The cargo will most likely be taken to a refinery in China.