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A shadowy network of ‘dark fleets’ is allowing Russia’s oil export market to escape sanction and threatens to undo any of the good Australia has done in supplying military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. By Martin McKenzie-Murray.
Australia’s crude Russian oil secret
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the subsequent sanctions imposed upon Russia by many countries, a substantial increase has been detected in “shadow fleets” – tankers that use subterfuge to escape restrictions.
The centrality of oil and gas exports to the Russian economy is as obvious as Europe’s dependency upon them was awkward when the war in Ukraine began. Today, however, the European and American commitment to throttling Russia’s traditional revenue has become more entrenched.
“We will act to take Russian oil and gas off the global market,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in late October. “We are choking off funding for Russia’s war machine. I am urging others to take these steps too, to go further to reduce their dependencies and incentivise third countries to stop buying these tainted resources.”
About the same time as Starmer’s remarks, United States President Donald Trump imposed new, stricter sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. It is a move of questionable efficacy as long as China and, to a lesser extent, India continue to purchase huge quantities of the Russian resource. Last year, China bought almost half of all exported Russian oil.
The survival of these major markets for Russian oil undermines sanction regimes. So too does the proliferation of the shadow fleets. The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, maintains a database of false-flag vessels and has recorded their sharp increase in the past few years. Such vessels sail under deceptive flags – or change flags repeatedly to defy accountability.
There is more to the subterfuge, though. The maritime intelligence group Windward released a report on November 17 on the practice – especially as it relates to Russia’s circumvention of sanctions. “Russia’s ‘dark fleet’ [is comprised of] vessels that largely operate outside western financial and maritime regulation, undermining the regulatory integrity of global trade and threatening international rules-based order,” the report read. “Many of these ships use spoofed Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, manipulate registries, or conduct ship-to-ship transfers in international waters to avoid port scrutiny and to obfuscate the destination and origin of cargo.
“The implications go beyond enforcement. Each additional dark vessel erodes the integrity of global trade data, distorting freight indices, and risk models. The maritime economy depends on visibility; opacity breeds inefficiency as much as risk.”
Australia now looks to be implicated in the shadowy Russian energy market via this convoluted supply chain. While the Australian government banned the direct importation of Russian crude oil not long after the invasion of Ukraine, it left an enormous loophole in the sanction that continues to be exploited: namely, we continue to import Russian oil after its refinement in India. About 10 per cent of Australia’s petrol and diesel imports come from Indian refineries.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported this month on the imminent arrival of the Proteus Bohemia, an oil tanker sailing under the Singaporean flag, in Botany Bay. According to tracking data, it is due to arrive this weekend.
The tanker was filled at the world’s largest oil refinery plant in Jamnagar, India. The problem is that roughly half of its contents contain once-crude Russian oil – India, so far, having refused to sanction the Russian asset.
This has appalled one of Australia’s richest men, Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest, who is incredulous that we have conceived such an easily exploitable sanctions regime. Forrest has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine during the nearly four years of war, donating tens of millions to the country and having met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. “No family filling their car with petrol should have to wonder whether their money is helping bankroll Putin’s assault on Ukraine,” Forrest told the SMH this week. “This should ring alarm bells across Australia. Allowing tainted fossil fuels to seep into our economy is not just a policy failure; it is a national vulnerability. We cannot and must not allow it.”
In Senate estimates hearings last month, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong took questions on the practice of importing, via third countries, Russian crude oil. At first, it seemed she was perfectly supportive of Forrest’s objections, but her reply began to incorporate qualifications.
“Of course what the government wants to do is to, with other countries, restrict the revenue that enables Mr Putin’s war machine, in support of the people of Ukraine,” she said. “We have imposed strict sanctions and other measures to restrict the import, purchase and transport of oil that is coming from or originated in Russia. The measures have resulted in Australian imports of Russian energy products falling to zero. We have also lowered the oil price cap; I think we did that mid September alongside the European Union, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. The logic of that is to drive down the market value of Russian crude oil. In June, we also added to our sanctions regime by sanctioning over 150 shadow fleet vessels. These are vessels that Russia utilises to try and avoid the sanctions.”
The objection from Forrest – not to mention Australian–Ukrainian organisations – is that it is disingenuous to suggest Australia’s importation of Russian energy is now “zero” when we are effectively purchasing it in laundered form. Which invites a perversity: the military and humanitarian aid that Australia has given Ukraine may well be exceeded by the revenue Russia has indirectly enjoyed from our purchase of Indian refinements.
In the same hearings, Wong said the Australian government “don’t have, unfortunately, the mechanisms that we would need to track and monitor [energy products refined by third countries].”
She went on to refer responsibility to private companies that should monitor their supply chains. “We would say that Australians do expect that their businesses ensure that their supply chains don’t inadvertently fund Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. Businesses should uphold that responsibility and expectation.”
It’s a matter of graver urgency, however, for the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations. “Every day that Australian petrol dollars flow to the Kremlin, our values are compromised,” they said in a recent media statement. “By enabling Russia to launder its crude oil, we help to: Fuel the Russian war machine and its genocidal war against Ukraine; prop up Russia’s economy, which derives 30 per cent of its federal budget revenue from oil and gas; Undermine global and Australian sanctions aimed at cutting off the Kremlin’s capacity to wage its war. This financial pipeline doesn’t just violate our principles – it prolongs the suffering, death, and destruction in Ukraine.”
Australia’s laxity on shadow fleets courts other risks, too, including environmental. Ships operating under false flags invalidate their insurance, and should one be responsible for a major oil spill, say, the cost of clean-up won’t be covered by insurers or the murkily registered ship owners. The cost will likely fall to whichever country is unfortunate enough to have had its coast despoiled.
Last month, the French military boarded the Boracay, a Benin-flagged tanker, off the west coast of France, and arrested its captain and first officer for undisclosed but “serious offences”. While French authorities were diplomatically circumspect about any official connection, the Boracay was berthed off the Danish coast in late September when that country experienced a rash of unauthorised drones surveilling military bases and airports.
According to The Maritime Executive, a specialist trade publication, the Boracay is an exemplar of the Russian shadow fleets. It’s a crude oil tanker, almost 20 years old, that has been detained in several European countries this year alone. It has used different names, different flags, and sails under deliberately opaque ownership. “The vessel left Primorsk, Russia, on September 20, likely still using the name Pushpa, and seven days later was stopped displaying the name Boracay,” the magazine reported last month. “It has been claiming registry in Benin since September 1, but most sources list that as a false flag. Before that, it claimed registry in Malawi and Gambia in 2025, after losing its flag in Djibouti at the end of 2024.”
The Boracay has since left French waters, and at time of writing is located in the Aegean Sea. Its captain has been ordered to return to France in February.
Vladimir Putin described the military boarding of the tanker as “piracy” and said it was then in international waters. French President Emmanuel Macron, however, has expressed concern at the large numbers of shadow vessels and pledged to design a “policy of obstruction” with European allies.
Australia might be wise to join such an effort.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on November 29, 2025 as "Australia’s crude secret".
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