The United States is monitoring ship-to-ship transfers involving tankers from shadow fleets in Southeast Asia, which pose safety and environmental hazards, Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources, told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
“A significant consideration for the maritime states of Southeast Asia is the risks that come from some of these shadow fleet operations, where you have older vessels, often with questionable insurance coverage and uncertain safety records,” Pyatt told Bloomberg on the sidelines of an energy conference in Singapore.
Iran, Venezuela, and most recently, Russia, have resorted to using the so-called dark, or shadow fleet, to ship their sanctioned oil to customers willing to take the risk of doing business with them and paying less for the cheaper sanctioned crude.
The coasts offshore Malaysia in Southeast Asia have turned into the biggest cluster of dark fleet tankers, where vessels are making ship-to-ship (STS) transfers to hide the true origin of the oil, according to Bloomberg.
China, for example, is reportedly importing a lot of Iranian oil branded as originating from Malaysia.
According to multiple media sources, the transfers involve a dark fleet consisting of a group of aging tankers that rarely have an identifiable insurer.
These transfers can be hazardous, including the danger of spills and collisions, with so many low-quality tankers massed in a narrow trade route with their transponders off.
In the middle of July, two large oil tankers, including one known to have carried oil from Iran and Venezuela, caught fire near Singapore.
The use of old tankers with unknown insurers is a typical characteristic of the tankers in the shadow fleets, engaged in trade with Iranian, Venezuelan, and Russian oil to circumvent Western sanctions.
Since Russia began to amass a dark fleet in 2022, its shadow fleet has caused more than 50 maritime accidents, insurer Allianz SE said earlier this year.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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