The Quick Wit Plan To Keep Russian Oil Moving 

A black door with a handle that looks like it has been ripped out is covered in packing tape at a Mumbai office building in the downtown area. Outside, the floor is littered with a post pile. According to a man from a nearby office, the staff recently left for unknown reasons and an undiscovered destination.

A tiny office in a rundown industrial estate nearly 1,200 miles away in Dubai gives no indication that it is a small part of Russia’s vast new petroleum supply chain. Read More Business News on our website.

An international maritime database lists businesses operating tanker assets worth $2 billion in each of the two locations. In less than a year, they assembled fleets that are now transporting millions of barrels of Russian oil around the world.

The first address is for a Mumbai-based company called Gatik Ship Management. The second is dedicated to Fractal Shipping. They are a part of a huge network of maritime operations that came to prominence soon after the invasion of Ukraine. These operations help Russia keep its oil exports going despite western sanctions.

On December 5, Europe imposed a price cap on Russia’s crude sales and joined the Group of Seven industrialized nations in banning nearly all seaborne oil imports. That reached out to refined fills in Feb. 5.

The attestation that the cargoes they were transporting cost no more than $60 per barrel was required by anyone wishing to gain access to important western services, particularly insurance. The US deliberately set a high cap because it wanted to keep flowing already discounted Russian crude, and both new shippers are using a lot of western insurance.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, mutuals within the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs in London cover approximately three-quarters of Gatik’s fleet. The proportion is even higher for Fractal.

According to industry data compiled by Bloomberg, both businesses have numerous ships covered by one of the International Group’s 13 member organizations, the American Club, whose headquarters are in New York.

Daniel Tadros, chief operating officer of The American Club, said that his organization covers ships in both companies’ fleets. He added that both companies have provided the so-called attestations, which are written statements proving that oil purchases comply with the G7 price cap.

Because many conventional western shipping companies stopped lifting Russian barrels, either to protest the invasion or to avoid sanctions, there was a greater demand for companies like Gatik and Fractal.

Indeed, even before the actions started, countless big haulers began to be offered to another gathering of purchasers, whose characters and affiliations were many times not satisfactory.

Rebecca Galanopoulos Jones, senior content analyst at VesselsValue, a company that monitors the prices of thousands of merchant ships, stated, “It is this new breed of tanker market players who have helped Russian oil to continue to flow around the world.” It appears that the sanctions placed on Russian oil had little effect on overall export levels.”

Trade Permit 

On the website of India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs, a search for the company Gatik Ship Management yields no results. A Gatik website address indicates that it is under development. The business declined to discuss its operations and answer about specifications. The only email address on the Fractal website is for recruitment. People who are familiar with Fractal officials did not respond to emails, WhatsApp messages, or calls asking for clarification.

Equasis lists its Dubai address as the location of the commercial manager of the majority of Fractal’s tankers. The firm likewise as of late moved out of a common work area in Geneva – the home of its administrative center, as per a supervisor there.

Bloomberg compiled data indicating that Gatik’s fleet can transport approximately 30 million barrels of oil and fuel. Fractal’s have a transportation limit of more like 15 million barrels. Bloomberg’s tanker tracking data indicates that almost all of the Fractal and Gatik tankers visited Russian ports this year or transferred cargo from one ship to another.

The United Arab Emirates and India did not agree to the price cap and do not have any other sanctions against Russian oil. If they can prove that the cargoes were purchased at or below the cap, they can also legally use western services.

The Server- Russia 

According to VesselsValue, a company that keeps track of the sale and purchase of merchant ships, Gatik’s first recorded acquisition of a tanker occurred in June 2022, and its most recent acquisition occurred in February of this year. Equasis data indicate that Fractal’s occurred in the same month.

The Gatik tanker Jumbo, which was spotted making a port call at Ust-Luga in Russia’s Baltic Sea on Feb. 11, is one such example. According to Bloomberg’s ship-tracking service, it is now close to Kalamata in Greece, a popular location for ship-to-ship cargo transfers of the nation’s oil. Equasis claims that Gatik took over management of the ship on February 3.

In the two months following the cap and Europe’s imports ban on December 5, Russia exported approximately 3.2 million barrels of crude oil from its ports, little changed from the previous two months. That is possible because the two businesses are a part of the new supply chain network.

Since neither Gatik nor Fractal is listed as the beneficial owner of the tankers in their fleets, it is likely that they are operating the vessels on behalf of third parties whose identities are frequently withheld. On the website of the American Club, they are identified as the “registered owners” of their vessels.

Although it does not identify the ship’s true owner, this is a prevalent form of vessel ownership in the shipping sector.

According to information from IHS, which maintains a shipping database for the International Maritime Organization, beneficial ownership is a more significant aspect for determining who actually owns the assets.

Steve Cicala, co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Project on the Economic Analysis of Regulation, stated, “We’re seeing how easy it is to transfer ownership with these large, new groups.”