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Oil tanker near Vladivostok: Russia has apparently bought more than 100 aging ships
Photo: TATIANA MEEL / REUTERS
According to a media report, Russia is buying up old oil tankers in order to sell its raw materials worldwide, despite Western sanctions.
As the "Financial Times" reports, citing data from the ship broker Braemar and the energy consulting company Rystad, Moscow has built up a "shadow fleet" with more than 100 used tankers over the course of this year: with the obvious aim of selling its oil even more frequently than before to ship to other regions of the world.
Up until this year, Germany and other European nations were among the major buyers of the Russian raw material.
Following Russia's incursion into Ukraine, EU member states announced an embargo on Russian tanker oil, set to come into effect on Monday.
To this end, they now want to enforce a price cap for Russian oil - and, together with international partners, force Russia to sell the substance to customers in other countries for a maximum of 60 US dollars (about 57 euros) per barrel (159 liters).
A Kremlin spokesman said it would not accept that cap — and had prepared for that scenario.
The »shadow fleet« could play a key role here.
According to the Financial Times, some of the tankers come from related countries such as Iran or Venezuela, which are also being sanctioned by the West.
An expert at broker Braemar told the newspaper the ships are mostly 12 to 15 years old and would have been scrapped in the coming years.
Possible destinations are countries such as China and India.
Their governments have not yet publicly positioned themselves on the oil price cap.
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