A 1,000-strong ‘dark fleet’ of rogue oil tankers evading sanctions has become a new target for the US and Ukraine, a senior maritime intelligence analyst has claimed.
Michelle Wiese Bockmann warned that the aging fleet poses geopolitical risks and the threat of oil spills worth $1 billion, with recent US seizures in Venezuela and Ukrainian drone strikes in the Black Sea marking a turning point for both countries in their efforts.
“These ships are a lifeline for these regimes because they are used to ship oil to finance the war in Ukraine, and also to give money to the illegal Maduro regime,” she added.
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The US has seized the Skipper, a Venezuelan oil tanker. (Planet Labs PBC/Reuters)
“This is a brand new problem for the US, and now Ukraine has indicated that they are going to attack these ships in the same way,” she said. “There is a new strategy to deal with this dark fleet, which is the lifeline of sanctioned oil revenues, and is now under attack by the US and Ukraine. The strategy is all about countering what we call gray zone aggression.”
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the US seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. (Planet Labs PBC/handout via Reuters)
Recent drone strikes by the Ukrainian Navy have taken out several tankers in the Black Sea, including the Dashan, part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, which Ukraine says is helping Moscow export oil in defiance of sanctions. according to Reuters.
“It is dangerous and can be interpreted as a form of gray zone aggression to maintain oil revenues,” Bockmann said.
“This is all a billion-dollar oil spill waiting to happen,” she added, noting the environmental and navigational risks associated with poorly maintained, uninsured vessels.
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Images of the Dashan tanker, reportedly part of Russia’s shadow fleet struck by Ukraine. (Security Services Officer/Handout via Reuters)
She said some of the “about 350 to 400 ships at the same time are not only being penalized but also flying false flags, which is dangerous” because false registration leaves ships stateless and uninsured, putting crews at risk.
“This is a major problem for maritime safety, it is a threat to the environment and it affects the well-being of the crew,” Bockmann said.
These ships, she said, are typically “legacy” and used exclusively for sanctioned oil transactions. Many also manipulate AIS to show they are in one place when they are actually somewhere else.
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Dashan, a tanker from the Russian Shadow Fleet, sails across the Bosphorus on its way to the Black Sea in Istanbul. (Yoruk Isik/Reuters)
“They use false flags, but also spoof and manipulate the AIS to show it is in one place when it is not. These ships have also gone to fraudulent registries that do not exist, meaning they have no insurance,” she said. “Their certificates of seaworthiness are invalid, and they rely on international maritime treaties to have the so-called ‘right of innocent passage’ so they cannot be intercepted.”
Bockmann said U.S. forces have used legal tools, including Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows the boarding of stateless ships, to stop them.
“I believe that they used Article 110, and they boarded that ship, and they absolutely had the right to remove that ship from global commerce,” she said.
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In the Caribbean, US forces recently seized the tanker Skipper, which was sanctioned in 2022 and found to be masking its location, under a federal warrant as part of a broader campaign to disrupt illegal oil shipping.
“The recent Venezuelan tanker carried 1.8 million barrels of oil uninsured, so that’s a billion-dollar maritime disaster waiting to happen,” Bockmann said.
Meanwhile, in the Black Sea, Ukraine has attacked several so-called “shadow fleet” tankers with naval drones, according to Reuters.
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“The three tankers targeted by Ukraine are all in ballast, meaning they were not carrying oil,” Bockmann said.
“That was carefully chosen, and they were also put under a false flag, just like in the recent case of the three tankers attacked in Ukraine. That flag was Gambia. In the American case of Skipper, the flag was Guyana,” Bockmann said.
