Southeast Asian states must address dangerous oil tanker activities in their waters

On May 1, 2023, the MV Pablo caught fire off the coast of Malaysia and exploded, burning completely. Fortunately, the tanker was empty of oil, limiting the environmental damage caused by the accident. However, three people were killed and four seriously injured in the explosion.

The MV Pablo is part of the growing global fleet of “dark”or “shadow” oil tankers. These are older, anonymously owned oil tankers that help Russia, Venezuela and Iran evade sanctions against their oil exports.

Many of these tankers are deficient and not complying with international maritime safety standards. This increases the risk of dangerous accidents and oil spills, with disastrous consequences for seafarers, coastal States and the marine environment. Urgent action is needed to contain this threat.

The threat of shadow shipping

The MV Pablo was built in 1997, and at the time of its explosion it had already far exceeded the age at which most oil tankers are scrapped. Registered in Gabon, a popular flag of convenience in the case of sanctions-violating vessels, it was owned by a single-vessel shell company in the Marshall Islands, with little information about its true owners. The ship, which is still wrecked off the coast of MalaysiaHe apparently did not have adequate insurance coverage.

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Hundreds of these tankers – up to 10 percent of the world’s oil trading fleet – They currently transport sanctioned oil around the world.

Southeast Asia is a main center for the shadow tanker fleet. Many shadow tankers pass through the Malacca Strait on their way to China, one of the largest consumers of sanctioned oil. They carry out risky ship-to-ship shipments oil transfers versus Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

In fact, the MV Pablo is not the first incident with a shadow tanker in the region. In November 2022, for example, the shadow tanker built in 2001 young yong ran aground in Indonesian waters near a Singapore gas pipeline.

Accidents involving tankers have also increased globally. TO reuters investigation has identified “eight groundings, collisions or near misses involving tankers carrying sanctioned crude oil or petroleum products” in 2022, including incidents off China, Cuba and Spain.

Countries have begun to discuss the risks of parallel transportation at the level International Maritime Organizationthe main regulatory body for the shipping industry.

However, they have not made sufficient use of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to address the problem. Countries like Porcelain and Vietnam They claim that the Convention allows them to restrict militarization of their EEZs – an interpretation that other nations decline. However, there is no doubt that the Convention allows coastal states to prohibit the passage of dangerous tankers in their waters.

The law of the sea

UNCLOS guarantees freedom of navigation for merchant shipping – including measures to break sanctions – but also allows coastal states to regulate maritime activities and prevent maritime crimes and accidents that could cause pollution and threaten their economies.

According to UNCLOS, states enjoy almost full sovereignty in its territorial waters that extend up to 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) from its coast. They may regulate the passage of foreign vessels to environmental, navigational safety or security purposes – provided that their measures comply with general international rules and standards and do not discriminate against any ship or cargo.

In international straitsAlthough foreign vessels are granted the right of passage in transit, bordering states may adopt regulations to ensure safe navigation. In it Strait of Malaccafor example, bordering states enforce regulations to prevent accidents and other practices that may harm their marine environment.

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In the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area that extends up to 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilometers) from a country’s coast, states have jurisdiction on the protection of the marine environment. Regarding marine pollution, state practice It is diverse and ranges from prior authorization before the entry of foreign ships into their EEZs to the designation of specific areas where entry and passage are regulated.

2005 Malaga Agreement between France, Spain and Portugal – signed after the erika incident in 1999 and the Prestige incident in 2002 – is the most striking case of regulations aimed at limiting freedom of navigation to prevent dangerous maritime activities. Under the agreement, the three countries inspect and, in some cases, expel ships that do not meet standards from their EEZs. Only France has moved away 28 ships of its waters after the adoption of the agreement.

Regional cooperation

In other words, the Convention is a powerful tool in the fight against dangerous maritime practices. It allows Southeast Asian states to deny access to their EEZs and coastal waters, including the Strait of Malacca, to aging and substandard tankers.

However, Southeast Asian countries need to improve cooperation to use the Convention to protect their waters effectively. This includes establishing ship monitoring and inspection schemes, sharing information on suspicious activities and tankers (such as oil transfers from one ship to another) and developing joint standards to enforce maritime safety regulations in the region.

Southeast Asian countries should also work with the International Maritime Organization and other countries, including China, to develop a global framework to address the growing risk of shadow tankers.