The dark fleet has tripled in size since 2022 and, as Windward’s Senior Maritime Intelligence Analyst Michelle Wiese Bockmann told delegates at ARACON 26, ‘Russia’s shadow fleet has evolved into a parallel fleet – it’s not a shadow fleet anymore.’ Speakers in the first session of the conference in Rotterdam covered global marine fuel market trends, European pricing dynamics in the context of a geopolitically volatile and uncertain climate, the economic environment for shipping and the changing behaviour of the sanctioned fleet. Explaining ‘the big picture’ for the shadow fleet, Bockmann said that 40% of seaborne trade is now taking place […]

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned a network of companies that are alleged to be selling fraudulent flags to the Iranian regime’s shadow fleet. The action forms part of Operation Economic Outcast, which is the Trump Administration’s campaign to cut off revenue to the regime in Iran. A statement issued by OFAC notes that for over 10 years, India-based Suniel Kumar Sharma and his wife, Jaspreet Preeti Shahid, have set up companies that pose as the flag registries and maritime service providers of countries and jurisdictions such as Guyana, Eswatini, Aruba, Mali, Mozambique, Malawi, […]

LNG supplier REV LNG and Siem Car Carriers have announced a partnership to supply LNG to Siem’s fleet in the U.S. Northeast. In a statement issued this week (5 November), Jeffrey Campbell, President, Siem Car Carriers, said the partnership ‘gives our ships the fuel they need on this side of the Atlantic, and it gives our team another supplier that we can build with for years to come.’ The announcement comes after REV LNG bunkered Siem Car Carriers’ pure car and truck carrier Siem Aristotle with LNG via a truck-to-ship delivery completed in October. According to REV LNG and Siem […]