Page 35 - RusRPTMar23

The pressure is on the Kremlin to smuggle oil to Continental ports as while Russia has been using its “ghost fleet” of up to 600 tankers to transport oil outside of the sanctions regime, as it takes two months for these ships to sail to Asia and back, Russia is looking for customers closer to home where ships can make multiple trips a month.
The volume of crude on vessels heading to China and India, plus small flows to Turkey and the quantities on ships that have yet to show a final destination, rebounded in the four-week period, equalling the highest amount observed since Bloomberg began tracking the shipments at the start of 2022.
Shipments to China have remained fairly constant, but Bloomberg reports that cargoes identified as "Unknown Asia" or "Other Unknown" will end up in India, which has massively expanded its import of Russian crude.
The Grace Felix case is indicative of the growth in ship-to-ship transfers, one of the easiest ways to dodge sanctions and disguise the origin of Russian oil, which have been most visible off the Spanish north African city of Ceuta and off the Greek coast near Kalamata, according to Bloomberg based on a study to ship destination and cargo data. At least 30 cargoes have been transferred between ships in those two locations since the start of the year. Twelve more Aframax tankers that loaded in the Baltic since late January look likely to transfer their cargoes to other vessels in the Mediterranean, based on their destination signals, the newswire reports.
35 RUSSIA Country Report March 2023 www.intellinews.com