Fighter Two previously transferred its latest Russia-loaded cargo to another tanker in mid-June for onward shipment to India, with any similar transfer post-sanctions testing the effectiveness of the UK enforcement measures on tankers breaching the G7 oil price cap on the federation’s oil and shipping sectors

Shipowners behind elderly tonnage used to ship Russian, Venezuelan and Iranian oil are choosing small registries that specialise in this niche area

The purchase of assets for LNG shipments has all the hallmarks of dark fleet tanker development seen since 2022 when pending sanctions fuelled a supercharged sale-and-purchase spree of secondhand tankers to anonymously owned, recently formed companies with links to the UAE

India crude imports averaged 4.6m bpd so far in July, on pace to be the highest in three months, offsetting weaker demand in China and Japan

The collision between Ceres I and Hafnia Nile took place in eastern waters of Malaysia, which is a well-known area for storage and transfers of oil. At the time of the casualty, more than 40 ships were at anchorage. It is commonplace in this area for vessels to be detected switching off vessel trackers or spoofing their location

One of the ships, the 23-year-old Ceres I, is among the dark fleet tankers and has long been used for facilitating Iranian trade, engaging in storage and ship-to-ship transfers, based on information collated by Lloyd’s List