Old Russian oil tankers still floating in the North Sea: ‘Environmental disaster waiting’

Old, poorly insured tankers carrying Russian oil still sail past the Netherlands every day. This is evident from research by Zembla and Follow the Money, which explored the topic separately. With these ships, Russia is avoiding war sanctions that have been imposed.

according to Zembla In the first half of this year, such a Russian tanker passed the Dutch North Sea coast 437 times. This is two or three dishes per day.

Zowel Follow the Money als Zembla writes that an environmental disaster is just waiting to happen. This is because there is a great risk of accidents, explosions or other accidents, which could cause a lot of oil to enter the sea.

Russia’s goal with the fleet is to sell oil for more than $60 per barrel, the price ceiling set by the G7 and the European Union. according to Zembla the ships often sail on to Turkey, India and finally China. These countries do not participate in the sanctions and process the oil into fuel, which is then legally exported to the Netherlands, for example.

These are discarded oil containers that would otherwise end up on the scrap heap and will be bought by Russia. The vessels are also said to have poor or no insurance and an unknown owner. In the event of an oil spill – which costs billions of dollars to clean up – the costs depend on the country where it occurs.

According to Follow The Money, the ships “float under the flag of countries in Africa or hide island states that do not take international safety rules seriously. ” According to the platform, many defects are found on these ships during incidental inspections in ports in, for example, China.

It is not possible to carry out insurance checks in the North Sea, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment says Zembla. “At sea the right of free passage applies and the Netherlands has no enforcement powers.” The Netherlands can only carry out inspections on ships anchored in a Dutch port, not on ships to pass

However, eighteen oil tankers were on board in June List of European sanctions is set. These ships are not allowed to enter European ports and European companies are prohibited from providing them with crew, supplies or financial services.

In March, the NRC also investigated the shadow fleet. This showed that Russian ships were refueling in Zeeland. Following that article, more stringent inspections of refueling vessels were carried out and are now two ships refused. The Human Environment and Transport Inspectors then said that the controls have a deterrent effect.