President Donald Trump announced a U.S. trade deal with India on Monday which he said includes a promise from India to stop buying Russian oil and potentially buy from the U.S. and Venezuela, but data shows the shadow fleet of tankers moving sanctioned crude continues to unload at Indian ports.
Global data and analytics firm Kpler’s vessel tracking shared with CNBC shows four tankers associated with Russia’s shadow fleet unloading or in the process of unloading sanctioned oil at Indian ports: the Giannis, unloading Urals at Chennai Refinery; the Nyxora, unloading Urals at Paradip Refinery; the Tiburon, unloading Urals at Vadinar Refinery; and the Seasons I, which is being tracked outside Vadinar on Tuesday morning but was yet to unload, according to Kpler.
In recent months, the global shadow fleet moving sanctioned oil, estimated to be as large as 1,400 vessels, has navigated around the tightening U.S. enforcement campaign on Venezuela and Iranian oil, and Europe’s interventions against the increasing flow of stateless tankers loading Russian crude.
A recent Lloyd’s List analysis on the global shadow fleet after the U.S. military actions in Venezuela found that out of the approximately 50 tankers that were full of Venezuelan oil, at least five tankers completed deliveries to China with the vessel’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) operating normally, and suggesting “the enforcement pressure has yet to bite.”
