Increased risk of oil spills as Russian tankers reject Danish pilot services

Tankers transporting Russian crude through Denmark’s challenging shipping straits are increasingly opting out of pilot services, raising the risk of potential oil spills.

According to data from Bloomberg and Danwatch, a Copenhagen-based investigative journalism organization, 20% of "shadow-fleet" tankers carrying Russian oil through the Danish straits declined pilot assistance in the three months ending in July. This is a significant rise from just 4% a year ago.

Crisscrossed every day by ferries and other maritime traffic, the straits can be hard to navigate. Sandbanks abound and there are strong currents and varied water depths. The use of pilots is recommended by the International Maritime Organization and has been commonplace for decades, helping to avoid any kind of major spill in all that time.

But Moscow, denied ready access to the world’s mainstream tankers by western sanctions, is increasingly relying on a fleet of ships that are older, poorly maintained, and have undeclared owners and questionable insurance. Those vessels, which now represent by far the biggest chunk of Russian oil transportation, are the main ones refusing pilotage.

Since the start of 2023, nearly 1,200 tankers carrying Russian crude have left the Baltic Sea and the share of shadow fleet vessels in that count has been increasing over that time. In the three months to the end of July, six out of every 10 shipments were carried on shadow fleet tankers. That’s up from about a four in ten in the first quarter of 2023.

One in every five of those ships rejected the services of Danish pilots from May through July. That’s up from about one in every 20 a year ago, according to data obtained under a Freedom of Information request by Danwatch.

The increase is just another example of how powerless are Denmark — and the European Union more widely — when it comes to addressing a widely acknowledged environmental threat.

The Danish Maritime Authority didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

News.Az