Just over a month ago, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, which resulted in immediate moral and regulatory sanctions by governments globally. Since then, Russia has had time to adapt to the new reality.

One of the segments that is starting to pick up is oil-chemical and oil-product tanker operations. Windward’s behavioral data indicates that there is a significant increase in “dark activity” involving tankers affiliated with Russian entities, or operating under the Russian flag

Dark Activity is one of the deceptive shipping practices (DSPs) that were specifically covered in the OFAC advisory published in May 2020, by the U.S. Treasury Department. It is the term used to describe a vessel operating while AIS transmissions are not received and, in some cases, are deliberately turned off by the vessel crew. Investigating if a vessel is engaged in DSP related to specific regimes is crucial to protect your business from dealing with sanctioned entities. Dark activity events lasting more than three hours outline a clear trend.

Windward data shows that, in the past week, there were 33 occurrences of such dark activity by Russian oil-chemical and oil-product tankers. That’s 236% over the weekly average (14) in the past year!

While DSP is expected to become increasingly relevant to Russian entities as sanctions continue to evolve, Windward data shows that some vessels and companies are still dealing with Russian affiliated tankers and engaging in ship-to-ship operations. In fact, it seems that the number of ship-to-ship meetings that lasted at least three hours between Russian-affiliated oil tankers and non-Russian-affiliated vessels is relatively normal.

Complete visibility is important as this situation continues to quickly evolve.

Marex Media