As US sanctions 'Iran proxy', EU aims to target Russian 'dark fleet' vessels and cargoes

The EU Parliament’s new proposals encourage EU member states to enhance surveillance capabilities, to identify shadow fleet vessels, and to monitor ship-to-ship transfers in violation of EU directives and IMO’s maritime polution (Marpol) regulations. The resolution also calls for a ban on ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude and oil products in EU waters, including by prohibiting the anchoring and fuelling of the shadow fleet in the EU.

The resolution includes calls to designate all individual shadow fleet vessels, their owners, operators, managers, accounts, banks, insurance companies, in an “immediate ban on the use of Western vessels in the transport of Russian oil”. Other proposals include sanctioning vessels sailing through EU waters without known insurance to protect the continent’s waters and avoid the EU taxpayer footing the bill in case of potential oil spill clean-ups.

"In a resolution adopted on Thursday, the European Parliament calls for more targeted measures against these vessels in the next EU sanctions packages, including all individual ships as well as their owners, operators, managers, accounts, banks and insurance companies. It also demands the systematic sanctioning of vessels sailing through EU waters without known insurance and urges the EU to enhance its surveillance capabilities, especially drone and satellite monitoring, and to conduct targeted inspections at sea. MEPs want EU member states to designate ports capable of handling sanctioned vessels carrying crude oil and LNG and to seize illegal cargo without compensation. Proposals also include the EU and its member states to lean harder on flag states to delist sanctioned vessels from their ship registries," an EU Parliament statement on the resolution said.

Lawmakers in the EU Parliament will vote on the resolution this week.

The package of measures follow on from the UK’s decision last month to crack down on tankers passing through the English Channel. This week the European Parliament followed suit, voting to ban tankers carrying Russian oil from the English Channel regardless of the flag they are flying.

On the same day, 14 November, that the EU passed its resolution, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 26 companies, individuals and vessels associated with the Syria-headquartered Al-Qatirji Co.

OFAC said the company is a conglomerate "responsible for generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force and the Houthis through the sale of Iranian oil to Syria and the People’s Republic of China".

“Iran is increasingly relying on key business partners like the Al-Qatirji Co to fund its destabilising activities and web of terrorist proxies across the region,” said the US Treasury Department’s Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T Smith.

“Treasury will continue to take all available measures to restrict the Iranian regime’s ability to profit from the illicit schemes that enable its dangerous regional agenda.”

As reported in October, a new legal mechanism in Panama will aid the revocation of registration and navigation licences for sanctioned ships in one of the world’s largest open registries. The US has encouraged ship registries to expedite the revocation of sanctioned vessels.

The Panama Maritime Authority said the new legal mechanism means vessels listed in Panama’s ship registry that appear on international sanctions lists will have their registration and navigation licences immediately revoked. 

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