Shadow Tankers to Supply Oil to Ally Cuba

[El Presidente]

Nothing is easy. 

 

Venezuela Resorts to Using Shadow Tankers to Supply Oil to Ally Cuba

By Marianna Parraga | June 27, 2024

 

Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA has begun using tankers that navigate off radar to supply its closest political ally, Cuba, as a fleet of state-owned vessels that have historically covered the route dwindles, according to documents and ship monitoring services.

Cuba and its main oil supplier, Venezuela, for over a decade had exclusively used their own tankers to navigate between the two countries.

A large portion of tanker fleets owned by Venezuela and Cuba are under U.S. sanctions, which also limits their travel. Operated by third parties, dark fleet vessels often lack western insurance and send false location signals to disguise their movement.

PDVSA in June began co-loading crude and fuel oil cargoes that deliver a portion in Cuban waters, and from there depart to destinations in Asia to discharge the remaining volume, according to company shipping documents.

The vessels spoof their signal, making them look elsewhere in the Caribbean while they are discharging in Cuba, often by ship-to-ship transfers, according to monitoring service TankerTrackers.com and a satellite photo by Planet Labs seen by Reuters.

One of the vessels, the Panama-flagged Neptune 6, was last week near Cuba’s Nipe Bay transferring Venezuelan heavy crude and fuel oil to Cuba-flagged vessel Esperanza, according to the documents and photo, analyzed by TankerTrackers.com. The ship’s transponder is signaling a location north of Curacao since late May, according to LSEG data.

 

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2024/06/27/781299.htm