Inside the shady, secretive world of shipping Russia’s tainted oil

Inside the shady, secretive world of shipping Russia’s tainted oil

Yang Li Hu, a 12-year-old Chinese oil tanker with a bright blue and red hull, was laden with oil as it set sail from the port of Kozmino on Russia’s far eastern tip. The journey, which began on May 17, was headed towards Gwanyang, in South Korea. Outside Kozmino, however, it was joined by a larger vessel, Yuan Qiu Hu. Floating alongside one another, the pair underwent a ship-to-ship transfer — an operation experts say can be used to obfuscate the seaborne movement of goods. With the job done, Yuan Qiu Hu sailed off to Lanshan, China, while Yang Li Hu headed back to Kozmino. It was hardly a subtle move: the transfer was easily picked up by marine analysts, for whom it was straight out of a familiar playbook. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, companies handling Moscow’s oil have done their best to stay under the radar , if they haven’t disassociated themselves. Many feared the threat of sanctions — or being seen as inadvertently aiding the Kremlin’s war. There are a number of methods. One of the most popular is to ‘go dark’, switching off a vessel’s automatic identification system so its position is no