G7 countries will limit Russia’s ability to use the “shadow fleet”

The countries of the Group of Seven intend to take measures to limit the possibility of Russian exporters of oil and petroleum products to use the so-called shadow fleet to circumvent economic sanctions. This is reported by the Bloomberg agency with reference to the representative of the Financial Sanctions Authority of Great Britain, Olga Dimitrescu. According to her, the new measures will be implemented in the second quarter of this year.

Dimitrescu emphasized that the G7 countries intend to force Russia to return to the services of carriers from the “group of seven” and to observe the price ceiling set by the “seven” for Russian oil and oil products.

Earlier, international observers have repeatedly reported that after the introduction of economic sanctions against Russia related to the attack on Ukraine, Russian companies continue to supply oil and petroleum products to the world, bypassing sanctions, using evasive logistics schemes. Among such schemes is the so-called shadow fleet – tankers that formally fly under the flags of countries that have not joined the sanctions, but in fact are owned by Russian companies.

The European Union and the G7 countries regularly make efforts to make stricter monitoring of compliance with sanctions against Russia, including the oil price ceiling.

• The “price ceiling” for Russian oil was introduced by the European Union and the G7 countries in December 2022. It limits the maximum price for Russian crude oil delivered by sea to 60 dollars per barrel. Since February, the prices of oil products have also been limited: the ceiling for light oil products is $100 per barrel, for heavy oil – $45. Moscow, however, continues to actively sell its oil to countries that have not joined the sanctions.
• According to Bloomberg, in 2023, almost all Russian oil delivered by sea was sold at a price above the ceiling.

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