Russia’s shadow fleet is a disaster waiting to happen

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and adviser at Gallos Technologies and a regular columnist for POLITICO.

Earlier this month, the Cameroon-flagged Turba — a tanker transporting contraband Russian oil — was found adrift off the coast of Indonesia.

Because the Turba is a shadow vessel, operating outside the official maritime sector, she lacks protection against such misfortunes. And suddenly, she was Indonesia’s problem.

Turba’s misfortune occurred just a few months after a similar fate befell Pablo, another shadow tanker that was thought to be transporting Iranian oil, which caught fire off the coast of Malaysia. And that’s just, so to speak, the tip of iceberg.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, a steady stream of such rickety vessels without insurance protection have been joining the dark fleet (as the vessels are also known) — and many of them have been having accidents. This situation poses enormous risks to law-abiding ships, the environment and the unfortunate countries controlling the waters in which these accidents occur.

Because Western sanctions have banned trading a wide range of Russian goods and put a cap on the price of Russian oil, Western insurers — who dominate the market — no longer insure such shipments. Thus, companies that still want to engage in this lucrative trade have been turning to shadow vessels instead — ageing ships with obscure ownership that lack international certification and Western insurance.

“The little piece of paper a dark ship may have that says it’s insured is not worth the paper it’s written on,” said Simon Lockwood, a maritime executive with the insurance broker WTW.

Two-thirds of the tankers carrying Russian crude are now insured by “unknown.” And because they lack proper insurance and disguise their ownership, these tankers also operate outside international maritime regulations.

Officially, they don’t exist. But they sail the world’s oceans and can cause considerable harm.

For example, on October 9, the captain of the 26-year-old Turba signaled the vessel could no longer be steered. The tanker then had to putter along without steerage, and when I checked in on the situation nine days later, she was limping near Singapore.

Whenever the Turba eventually does manage to reach a port, she will need repairs. If she collides with another ship, that ship will need repairs too. And if her crude leaks into the water, the ocean will need to be cleaned up — much like it was with the similarly elderly Pablo.

And this shadow fleet is growing fast: Today it encompasses some 400-650 vessels — already several times its size before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and two-thirds are estimated to be oil tankers.

According to S&P Global, in Gabon — today’s flag state of choice for the growing dark fleet — a whopping 98 percent of all medium and large oil tankers are high risk or have no identifiable owner. And Norwegian authorities estimate that an average of 12 shadow vessels, typically transporting Russian oil, traverse Norwegian waters every day.

Unsurprisingly, the number of dark-fleet accidents has been growing as well. Vessels have caught fire, run aground, caused oil spills, lost steerage and collided with other vessels. My research assistant, Katherine Camberg, has identified nearly three dozen incidents involving suspected dark ships over the past 18 months alone. The accidents aren’t just a result of these vessels being old and poorly maintained either: To be as dark as possible, they often turn off their automatic identification systems (AIS) — a GPS-type signal that all commercial vessels are required to use to avoid collisions.

“The very tools that the shadow fleet avoid using to avoid detection are the tools specifically implemented to prevent accidents at sea,” said Cormac Mc Garry, a maritime analyst with Control Risks. “By switching off AIS, a ship is increasing the risk of collision. The shadow fleet is setting us back years in terms of maritime safety management.”

And because these shadow vessels lack protection, many countries are having to come to their rescue. Malaysian authorities, for example, had to rescue Pablo’s crew and guard the burning tanker. Meanwhile, law-abiding vessels face large costs if they’re hit by a dark ship. “It’s like having a crash with an uninsured driver,” Lockwood said.

“With P&I [Western maritime insurance], you’re licensed to trade. It also means there’s protection if there’s an incident. If a shadow fleet tanker breaks up in the English Channel, who pays?” Lockwood asked. “The U.K. and French taxpayers will have to pay.”

It’s also in no way clear who, if anyone, would salvage a shadow vessel if it sinks. Salvage companies only do so if instructed — and paid — by insurers.

Imagine if the world’s roads were filled with uninsured vehicles that haven’t passed inspections and don’t use their lights — that’s what’s happening on the world’s oceans. “The vessels’ owners will push the envelope really hard to make as many trips as possible with these vessels because there’s money to be made,” Lockwood said. “But because they lack P&I, there’s no requirement that they meet certain standards.”

A great deal more accidents, oil spills, collisions and fires are now just waiting to happen in the waters of law-abiding countries. And as these vessels age, the risk of accidents will only continue to grow — which means lots of taxpayer money spent on cleaning up accidents, shipping companies spending lots of money on damage caused by uninsured vessels, and lots of harm to the environment too.

One could even argue that the shadow fleet constitutes a handy tool with which Russia can harm other countries, as well as the companies shipping their goods.

So, what to do?

As retaliating by sending wobbly vessels to wreak havoc in Russian waters would clearly be a bad idea, governments and companies should instead start documenting all the costs they’ve incurred due to dark vessels serving Russia. Then, when its war against Ukraine ends, governments can present the Kremlin with the bill, which would add to the massive demands the Kremlin stands to receive for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Governments can also inform the Kremlin that they’ll no longer allow dark vessels carrying goods to and from Russia to traverse their waters.

According to international maritime law, traveling through other countries’ waters is a right — but having proper insurance is a requirement too. And it’s in everyone’s interest that the dangerous dark fleet be defeated.

Braw occasionally consults for another division of WTW, but her views expressed in this article are hers alone.