A dramatic surge in the shipment of Russian crude oil in ageing, uninsured tankers poses a growing risk of oil spills on Asian trade routes, an environmental group has warned.
To continue reading, subscribe to Eco‑Business.
There's something for everyone. We offer a range of subscription plans.
- Access our stories and receive our Insights Weekly newsletter with the free EB Member plan.
- Unlock unlimited access to our content and archive with EB Circle.
- Publish your content with EB Premium.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the number of “shadow” tankers – that is, vessels that have evaded sanctions imposed by the West – has mushroomed, with the Straits of Malacca and the Korea Strait seeing a sharp increase in the volume of Russian oil transported on these waterways.
Shadow tankers pose a high environmental risk, because they are typically older than regular oil vessels and tend to operate with limited or no protection and indemnity insurance, so the cost of accidents must be borne by governments and taxpayers.
According to analysis by nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), the amount of Russian oil transported in shadow tankers through the Strait of Malacca increased by 151 per cent and in the Korea Strait by 351 per cent in the first eight months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2022.
Similar spikes in Russian crude shipments have been seen this year on other busy maritime “chokepoints” such as the Turkish Straits, the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Suez Canal. Globally, Russian shadow vessels outnumber ships originating from the world’s largest economies, the G7 countries, by two to one, according to CREA data.
Shadow tankers have reportedly been disabling or spoofing automatic identification system signals, which has made it harder to track vessels and raised maritime security concerns.
Several near-misses involving shadow tankers have been reported in 2023 and 2024 near European and Southeast Asian shores. Shadow tankers have been involved in 50 incidents since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
The cleanup costs for an oil spill involving a typical shadow tanker ranges from US$859 million to US$1.6 billion, CREA said.
Southeast Asia is already the world’s trouble spot for bilge dumping, the practice of ships illegally discharging waste bunker oil at sea. Dumped oil regularly washes up on beaches around the archipelago. A bilge dumping incident occurs on average once a day off the coast of Indonesia.
said that oil spills are particularly bad news for Southeast Asia’s biodiverse coral reefs, which need light to survive.
The chemicals used to disperse oil are also a concern, as the treated oil will sink and cover reefs, she noted.
Megafauna such as turtles are badly affected by oil spills, as they need to breach the water’s surface to breathe. Diving birds such as kingfishers were among the most common casualties of the recent oil spill in Singapore, which was caused by a ship collision.
